


you know I dreamed about you

by napricot



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dreams, Dreamsharing, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 04:38:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 59,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2374859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/napricot/pseuds/napricot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve wasn’t surprised when Bucky showed up in his dreams, after he was unfrozen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you know I dreamed about you

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The National's ["Slow Show."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCR0Tr2HTfA) Huge thanks to [hoekitchen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hoekitchen/pseuds/hoekitchen) for the beta and for putting up with my endless whining about this fic! You helped keep me motivated even as this fic ballooned to ridiculous length. To the others who are responsible for this fic (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE), THANK YOU and I hope it doesn't disappoint too much. 
> 
> Some dialogue is lifted from the Captain America: The Winter Soldier movie, you'll recognize it when you see it. Also, no warnings for anything but what was already in the movie.

Steve wasn’t surprised when Bucky showed up in his dreams, after he was unfrozen. Steve had dreamed of him plenty often before, after all, in the way you inevitably dreamed about people you spent a lot of time with: stupid, nonsensical dreams, and dreams that just jumbled up the waking day into the dreaming night. And in those days after Bucky died and before Steve brought the plane down, Bucky featured in plenty of his dreams and nightmares in the few hours of sleep he could snatch. In those, Bucky was always falling or out of reach, and Steve would wake up feeling like he was missing some vital organ, or like he had taken a mortal wound whose pain hadn’t quite reached his brain yet.

But after he was taken out of the ice, after the whole mess with Loki and the Chitauri, the dreams became different. He didn’t need much sleep thanks to the serum, and what sleep he did get was either exhausted and dreamless, or restless and strange. His dreams, when he remembered them, had a feverish edge that made him wonder if he was actually getting sick for the first time since he got the serum. Bucky was in them, but not the way he usually was: he was among the faceless crowds, or wandering at the edges of Steve’s awareness. He always looked blank or lost. Steve’s dream-self never quite noticed him, but Steve would wake up and remember that he had seen him. On waking, Steve would feel the curious certainty that the Bucky prowling around in his dreams was something other than the product of a grieving mind. It was somehow worse than the dreams where Bucky was falling. 

Steve did his best to put the dreams out of his mind. He dutifully visited his SHIELD-appointed therapist, said all the right things about how he was grieving but adjusting well and how it was good to have necessary work to do with a team he was slowly getting to know. And that was all true. The Avengers were working to help rebuild New York and SHIELD had work for him. Steve spent some of his time at his own apartment, and some at Stark Tower. Its luxury was still baffling and uncomfortable, but when it came down to it, Steve didn’t much like living alone, and at least there was always someone in the Tower. And if nothing felt like home yet, well. He supposed that was unavoidable.

****

Steve did his best to take the train down to DC to go see Peggy at her nursing home, whenever he could. He hadn’t been able to keep his promise to dance with her at the Stork Club, and they had never had more than that one too-brief kiss, but they were both still alive and he still loved her. He tried not to dwell on the might-have-beens. Peggy had obviously gone on to live a full life, and he couldn’t begrudge her any of it. It was just hard, sometimes, facing the truth of all the years he had slept through.

Those years were most apparent in the lines of Peggy’s face and in her frail, shaking hands. All of the new technology, the changes in the world, Bucky’s persistent absence from his waking life—all of that still seemed a little unreal, almost as if it was another version of a SHIELD-constructed scenario. But Steve saw the reality of the years that had passed in Peggy. On her good days, when she knew who he was and what had happened to him, he could tell that he had become an old, beloved grief to her. She told him about her life and about the Howling Commandos with passion and affection. It helped, to know about the full lives everyone lived after the war. It helped to know that for others, grief wasn’t a still-bleeding wound. 

On one of her good days, after they’d swapped stories about Howard and Tony, Peggy took a slow breath and reached for his hand.

“I’m sorry we never found James for you. I want you to know that Howard and I looked for him, after, in the spring when the snow had melted some.”

Steve looked down at their joined hands and nodded, unable to say anything past the sudden lump in his throat. He knew they hadn’t found anything. There was an empty grave at Arlington with the name James Buchanan Barnes. 

“That ravine was still too treacherous to fully search…I’m so very sorry we could never bring him home. I know he meant a great deal to you.”

It was the first time since he’d woken up that anyone other than his well-meaning therapist had spoken with Steve about Bucky. It was the first time since he’d woken up that Steve had spoken with anyone who had known Bucky. 

Still looking at his and Peggy’s hands, he said, “I keep dreaming about him. Not—not when he fell, or memories, just—it’s like he’s just there, on the edges of all of my dreams. He doesn’t say anything, he just watches or looks lost.” 

“Steve…everyone grieves differently. I know that for some time, every time I saw a tall man with blond hair, I thought it was you, for just a moment. You must let yourself grieve him.”

But when he left Peggy with a kiss on the cheek, he thought it would almost be easier if he saw Bucky in every dark haired man on the street. At least then the illusion would cleanly shatter as soon as he saw their face. Instead Steve’s sleeping mind traitorously provided the memory of Bucky’s image and refused to grant him anything else. Steve’s dream self never even talked to him or interacted with him. Steve started hoping his dream self would just get with the program already and talk to Bucky. Maybe then he’d get some of the closure his therapist was always talking about. 

****

When Steve next dreamed of Bucky though, he regretted thinking any such thing. Because this time, he was dreaming, and he knew it in one sick flash as Bucky looked straight at him. Steve walked towards him through the dream’s amorphous part-gym, part-helicarrier setting. Bucky took one hesitant step back, looking as blank and lost as he always did in these dreams. It was an expression Steve never saw on his face until after rescuing him from that HYDRA factory, and even then, he’d only seen it in the brief moments after Bucky startled awake from some nightmare. Bucky was wearing a vaguely military looking uniform, one Steve didn’t recognize, and his hair was longer than it had ever been in life.

“Steve?” He sounded confused, and hoarse like he hadn’t spoken in days.

“Bucky—” Steve didn’t know what to say. _Stay, I miss you so much I can hardly breathe, I can’t stand this._

Bucky shook his head and took another step back, and Steve reached out after him—

Only to wake up in his bed in his apartment. Steve couldn’t do anything but gasp and curl up against the shock of the dream and his abrupt awakening. This was nothing like the sort of dream visitation from the beloved dead that Steve had heard other bereaved talk about. No feeling of peace or love, no closure. It wasn’t even like a nightmare. Bucky had looked so confused, so lost. And then he was just gone. Which, Steve supposed, was not unlike how it had happened in real life. One moment Bucky had been there, and then he had fallen, and now Bucky was nowhere. Nowhere but Steve’s dreams anyway. Which, thought Steve, was the opposite of closure. It felt more like being haunted.

It was more than an hour before dawn, but Steve couldn’t face trying to go back to sleep. He got up and went for a run, and desperately tried to convince himself that it was just a dream, that it didn’t mean anything.

****

The dreams didn’t stop. Steve thought he should have been careful what he wished for, because now he was almost always aware he was dreaming in his dreams. Bucky was in all of them, though now it seemed he was avoiding Steve, only seen in fleeting glimpses. Steve tried to follow him, and his dreams shifted accommodatingly to help him. But he could never catch up to Bucky.

The Avengers and his SHIELD coworkers were starting to notice the strained look in Steve’s eyes, and he found that he had more company than usual. Bruce would have breakfast with him in the mornings when they were both at the Tower, Clint and Natasha would seek him out outside of SHIELD missions, Tony would gamely try to find common ground by working out with him in the Tower gym when he was in New York, which wasn’t too often. Even Ms. Potts cleared time in her schedule to visit museums with him when she was in New York for work. It did help, but at night he was still left alone with the stubborn ghost of Bucky that his brain refused to let go. He didn’t tell his therapist, afraid that SHIELD would prescribe ever more intrusive psychiatric evaluations, or worse. He was just grieving differently. It would pass. 

One morning over breakfast, Steve obliquely asked Bruce about the dreams. He knew Bruce wasn’t technically any kind of medical doctor, but he was a good listener and always answered Steve’s questions about the modern world without judgment. 

“Lately, I’ve had these weird dreams. Dreams where I know I’m dreaming, and I can…kind of change stuff.”

Bruce looked up from his tea with interest. “Lucid dreaming? Yeah, some people can do that. Some people try to do that on purpose. Were you trying to?”

“No, it just…happened.”

“Well there’s nothing wrong with you, if that’s what you’re wondering. Most people have probably had at least one lucid dream. Like I said, some people make the effort to do it on purpose so they can have crazy adventures in their sleep. Fly around, build cool stuff, that kind of thing. Like a video game in your head, you know? Uh, if you know what video games are—”

“Yeah, I know what video games are. Thanks,” said Steve as he nodded, pleased to know that at least the knowing he was dreaming part wasn’t crazy. He was rescued from facing Bruce’s shrewd stare and any further questions by Tony striding in with wild eyes and wilder hair to steal Bruce away for mad science.

Armed with a specific term for what was happening in his dreams, Steve turned to the internet to learn all he could about lucid dreaming. It all felt kind of science fiction to him, but from what he could find, most people treated it as a fun mental trick, with some touting it as a potential treatment for nightmares. Steve wasn’t quite ready to classify Bucky’s persistent presence in his dreams as nightmarish. If he could get the hang of this lucid dreaming thing though, maybe he could at least interact with the Bucky in his head, or turn his dreams into something less unsettling.

Each night, Steve experimented with his newfound ability. Some nights he slept normally, but on most others, he dreamed, and knew he was dreaming. Gradually, Steve learned that he could influence or control everything about his dreams but Bucky. He could pull landscapes out of his memory as real as when he had seen them in real life, and he could even make entirely fantastical new ones, though that took more mental effort and those dreams frequently collapsed under the weight of that effort. All his efforts to will his memory of Bucky into existence came to nothing though, which seemed unfair. Steve knew Bucky better than he knew Brooklyn or battlefields. Why wouldn’t his dreaming mind obligingly cough up a memory of him to interact with? Why was he stuck with a lurking, silent Bucky who lingered at the edges of his awareness? Steve tried a different tack then, and deliberately built dreamscapes of the familiar, in the hopes that it would draw Bucky out: their apartment in Brooklyn, Ebbets Field, their old school. That didn’t work either, and Steve just woke up feeling more alone than ever.

****

Life went on, and Steve grew used to his new status quo. He figured he might as well take advantage of this lucid dreaming and started branching out from the familiar Brooklyn settings. The night he recreated the Grand Canyon, or at least some small part of it, was the first time dream-Bucky really spoke to him. 

After the battle with the Chitauri, Steve had ridden out of the city on his bike intent on finding his place in the America of 2012. He had spent the first few weeks after he was thawed lost and at SHIELD’s mercy, and escape from the confines of a simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar city had seemed like a great idea at the time. Some things couldn’t be escaped though. His trip had wound its way inexorably westward, and almost despite himself, he ended up at the Grand Canyon. It had been beautiful and silent. Despite all of the tourists milling around, the immensity of the Canyon swallowed sound. It was bigger than anything he could have imagined.

Bucky had wanted to go to the Grand Canyon, after the war. There had been no after the war for Bucky. 

So Steve, seized with what he recognized was an unhealthy combination of masochism and sentimentality, recreated the Grand Canyon in his dream. It was too big for his mind to hold, but he had managed to build his favorite view by the time Bucky sat down beside him on a cliff’s edge. Steve watched their legs dangle over the edge for a moment and tried to gather the strength to look at his own personal ghost.

“Hey Bucky.”

“Steve.”

Steve took a deep breath to brace himself and said, “I miss you. I miss you so much. I know this is just in my head, but I don’t care.”

He turned to look at Bucky, who was looking at him like Steve was the one who was a ghost.

“I’m James Buchanan Barnes. And you’re Steven Grant Rogers,” said Bucky, sounding strangely uncertain.

This wasn’t how he had expected this to go. He had been expecting a nice heart-to-heart with the ghost of Bucky his mind had so thoughtfully provided. “I—Yeah. Bucky—”

“I think I forgot that, for a while. I forgot you. How could I forget you?”

Bucky was looking at him desperately, eyes flitting over his face like he was trying to memorize him. Steve felt like his mind was molasses. None of this made sense. He couldn’t imagine his own mind conjuring this scenario, because he had no idea what was going on. He could believe that his dreaming mind would haunt him with a Bucky he couldn’t reach, but this was something else. Why would Bucky forget him?

“I’m really cold, Steve. I think—” Bucky shook his head as if to clear it, and shuddered convulsively. “It’s so cold.”

Steve felt his grip on the dream slip abruptly, and all he could think of was Bucky falling into the snow, Bucky’s body left cold and broken and alone in some icy ravine in the Alps. The warm reds and golds of the Canyon started turning to ice. A bitterly cold wind howled through the suddenly frigid air and he could hear the sound of a train clattering. He thought wildly that Bucky really was haunting him, that his spirit hasn’t been laid to rest, that Bucky’s body shouldn’t have been left there all alone, he should have been _buried,_ they should have _found him, why hadn’t Steve found him_ —

Steve jolted awake, breath coming fast and labored like he was having an asthma attack. He lurched off the bed and stumbled to the bathroom, still struggling for breath, wishing hopelessly and desperately that Bucky was here to put a hand on his back. _Stevie, you gotta breathe for me, breathe in and out slow like me, okay?_

He felt his knees hit the floor and a sob rip free from his throat. 

JARVIS’s smooth voice filled the air. “Captain Rogers, your vitals indicate that you are in distress. Do you require assistance?”

Of course Tony had JARVIS keep an eye on their vitals, thought Steve distantly as he tried to regulate his breathing. He knew he didn’t have asthma anymore, but his lungs felt like they had in 1940. But it was 2013 and Bucky wasn’t here, was never gonna be here as anything but his own mind’s sick self-punishment—

Steve heard Natasha call out for him from somewhere in his apartment, presumably alerted by JARVIS. The Avengers were all in the Tower for once, having assembled the previous day to handle some mostly incompetent criminals who had gotten ahold of Chitauri tech. Natasha entered his bedroom, gun in hand and clearing the room like there might be an intruder, and found him in the bathroom. She must have been asleep, because she was only wearing a thin tank top and shorts.

“Steve! JARVIS, get me SHIELD medical.”

“No, I don’t need medical!” Steve managed to gasp. 

Natasha knelt and brought her hand to his neck to check his pulse, her other hand steadying his shoulder. Her eyes scanned him swiftly for any injury.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Steve choked out a laugh he knew sounded hysterical. “I’m just going crazy, I’ve just gone completely insane. Call off SHIELD medical, JARVIS.” He managed to calm his breathing down enough that Natasha looked a little less tense.

“Agent Romanoff? Shall I cancel the call to SHIELD medical?” prompted JARVIS.

Natasha examined Steve intently. He knew he looked like a mess, crying on his knees in the harsh bathroom light. He didn’t want to think of what Natasha must think of him. She must not have thought he was in danger though, because she told JARVIS to cancel the call and call off the other Avengers, and sat down beside him on the bathroom floor.

“Steve.” He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of what he could say to Natasha to get her to leave him alone.

“ _Steve_ ,” she repeated, her voice low and calm, and put a cool hand on his face.

He pulled away and said, “I’m fine. Thank you for checking on me, I’m fine.”

“You’re really not. You haven’t been for a while. What did you mean you’re going crazy?”

It was obviously too much to hope that Natasha would let that go. He’d seen what Natasha could do in interrogation. He didn’t have a chance at lying to her.

“My best friend is dead and I can’t stop dreaming about him,” he admitted miserably.

“Well, it looks like you just had an anxiety attack about it.”

“Oh, is that what that was called?” Steve read a lot of brochures when he sat in his therapist’s waiting room. Anxiety attack was just another, newer way for doctors to tell him he had “nervous troubles,” and he liked it just as little.

Natasha was unbothered by his sarcasm. “Think so. Come on, let’s go to the kitchen.”

It wasn’t a request, and Steve didn’t have the energy to fight her on it. He followed her obediently to the elevator and to the Avengers’ common kitchen area, where he sat on one of the stools at the large kitchen island with his head in his hands. Natasha puttered around, making tea by the sound of it. By the time she set a cup in front of him, he had mostly regained his composure. He avoided her thoughtful stare, and kept his eyes on the tea.

“I think we forget that for you, it’s basically been a few months since 1945.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re grieving.”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Steve finally got the courage to look at Natasha. She looked calm, as she usually did, but something about the set of her hands on the teacup in front of her spoke of discomfort. Steve knew she was thinking about how to handle this, handle him. He didn’t particularly want to be handled.

“Steve—”

“Thank you for the tea. I doubt I’ll be able to get back to sleep, I’m gonna go for a run. See you at SHIELD…later today, I guess,” he said, and beat a hasty retreat.

****

Natasha didn’t go to Fury about his little nervous breakdown, but the other Avengers were on eggshells around him. Collectively, the Avengers had the emotional sensitivity of an awkward teenager, so the whole thing was intensely uncomfortable for everyone involved. They all meant well though. Steve would have just preferred not having to deal with everyone’s sad, sympathetic looks, especially since he was still apparently going crazy. So he avoided going to the Tower and did his best to dodge Clint and Natasha at SHIELD.  

The next time he saw Bucky, Bucky looked a little abashed.

“Sorry for scaring you. I’m not—I don’t know what’s going on.”

Before, Steve had thought admitting that he missed Bucky and making his peace with him would be enough to banish the persistent dreams. He had looked it up: acceptance was the last stage of grief. It didn’t seem to have worked last time, so Steve decided to take a different tack. This was all just about his need for closure, probably. Everyone was always talking about how people grieve in a lot of different ways (Ms. Potts) and how the mind has remarkable coping mechanisms (Bruce), but that if you just sucked it up and dealt with it, you could start moving on (Tony and Clint). So Steve decided to suck it up and deal with it.

“You died, Bucky. You fell off that train in the Alps and I couldn’t save you. You shouldn’t even have been there, you could have gone back home after what Zola did to you. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I miss you so much.”

Bucky just blinked at him and looked confused for a moment before his jaw took on that painfully familiar stubborn set.

“That’s not what happened.”

“What? That _is_ what happened, I’m trying to deal with my messed up guilt here—”

“That’s _not_ what happened. It wasn’t your fault, you couldn’t have done anything. And I wanted to be there. I told you I’d be there until the end of the line and I meant it.”

“I can’t believe you’re arguing with me about this. I can’t believe I’m arguing with a figment of my own imagination in a dream.”

Bucky was unimpressed. “I’m really pretty sure I’m not a figment of your imagination.”

“Yes, you are. You have to be, because the alternative is that you’re haunting me. Are you haunting me?”

“I swear to god you didn’t used to be such a dumbass.” 

“I’m sorry we couldn’t bring you home. We tried to recover,” Steve faltered for a moment. “We tried to recover your body, but the weather was too bad and we didn’t have the gear. Peggy said she and Howard tried too, after the war. That ravine was just too dangerous.”

“Jesus Christ, Steve. You’re not crazy, and I’m not a ghost who’s mad about not being buried.”

“Then what are you?”

The dream started slipping away again, less violently than last time. This time it was like it was dissolving into fog. Steve didn’t know if it was him or Bucky doing it. Bucky’s face went terrifyingly blank for a moment before fear replaced the blankness.

“I don’t know. It’s just cold, but I don’t want them to take me back out, they’ll take everything away again if they take me back out—”

“They? They who? Bucky!”

Steve woke up, more confused then ever.

****

He managed about a week of avoiding the Avengers, and found himself hoping in vain for another alien invasion when Tony Stark showed up at his apartment door one afternoon looking awkward and kind of apologetic about even being there. 

“Let me go suit up,” said Steve. He was still holding out hope that Tony was there on Avengers business.

“No, no world-saving needed, everything’s fine. Or, as fine as it ever is, which is not very what with all the destruction and whatever spy nonsense SHIELD is up to, and, y’know, global warming, but. Fine. I, uh, I’m here on a personal visit.” Tony shifted his weight from foot to foot and peered curiously behind Steve into his apartment. “Can I come in?”

Though Steve was sorely tempted to shut the door in his face, he was fully aware that Tony would not give up easily or at all, so he stepped aside to let him in. “Yeah, sure. Come on in. Can I get you something, coffee, tea?”

Steve sat down at his kitchen table while Tony grimaced and paced restlessly around the apartment. “Got any hard liquor? Because I’ll need it to get through this. No, never mind, joking, joking.” 

Steve didn’t want to face half an hour of Tony rambling before getting to the point, so he decided to put Tony out of his misery. “Natasha sent you, didn’t she.”

“No! Why would you say that? I’m your teammate, I can just come over for a visit, can’t I? That’s a…thing teammates do, isn’t it? Really, I’m actually offended you even—oh, screw this, if she wanted stealth she should have come herself. We, that is the Avengers and Pepper, decided that someone should come…talk to you. About, uh, your grieving process or whatever. And since I am apparently the only one who’s…dealt with that stuff as an adult…ish, I drew the short straw.”

“Right.”

Tony finally stopped his puttering and poking and turned to look Steve in the eye. Steve was suddenly the recipient of Tony Stark’s full, undivided attention, and it was a little startling and a lot uncomfortable. 

“I know we got off on the wrong foot. I’m sorry. You’ve lost the entire life you knew, and there’s no way that doesn’t suck. It’s—we know that’s hard. And on top of that, you lost your best friend. And that’s just—I don’t know what I’d do without Rhodey, I’d totally be going insane too. Rhodey’s the only reason I didn’t completely lose it after my parents died. So you can ask for help, if you need it. I don’t know what you need, or what we can do, but you’re kind of worrying us, so…” Tony trailed off into silence.

The awful thing was, Tony was being entirely sincere. Steve could have dealt with this if Tony had been his usual glib self and breezed in to spout some platitudes. At least then he could have gotten angry. But he couldn’t in good conscience meet Tony’s sincerity with anything other than honesty. He’d feel like a bully if he tried to turn this into one of their usual arguments.

“Peggy told me she and Howard looked for Bucky…Bucky’s body.”

“Yeah. And yours. You were both kind of a big deal, plus Dad could never quite shake the idea that the serum might have kept you alive if you went down somewhere cold enough.”

“They never found Bucky though.” Steve had to look away from the terrible sympathy in Tony’s eyes.

“No, they didn’t. They tried a few times, Dad even funded some climbers and mountaineers, but the terrain and the river were just—it wasn’t doable. Not by air, and not by land. One body, in that whole ravine, and after so many years…I’m sorry Steve, but it’s worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack.”

Steve nodded. He had figured as much. “I can’t—I keep dreaming about Bucky, and I can’t stop thinking about how no one brought him back home. There was never time for anything other than a wake, and then I brought the plane down…I guess it just doesn’t feel real yet.”

“Yeah, that would be denial. The first stage of grief. See, there are these five stages of grief, and—”

“Yeah, I know, my therapist told me.”

“Right.”

Tony stared at him, clearly at a loss for words for once. He was starting to feel that tightness in his chest again. _I’m really cold, Steve_. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before doing his best to summon up his “trust me, I’m Captain America” voice, and met Tony’s eyes again.

“Anyway, you don’t have to worry, I’m not going crazy.” He tried for a smile, though he didn’t know how successful it was. “I just wish he was here. Y’know, we never spent much time apart, before the war, and I’m still not used to—” _Being alone. How wrong a world without Bucky in it is. The godawful unbearable empty space where Bucky used to be,_ he didn’t say. He wasn’t used to the total silence from Bucky, the absence of his familiar chatter and how there wasn’t even the hope of a letter from basic or from the front. He wasn’t used to the way this apartment Steve still couldn’t bring himself to call home was empty of any trace of him. 

He swallowed past the lump in his throat, tried to ignore the flutter of panic in his chest. “I shouldn’t have left him there. I should’ve tried harder to find him. I shouldn’t have left him alone in the cold, he always hated winter.” Steve had to stop and put his head in his hands to hide the tears he knew were welling up. “I should go back there and look for him. But there’s probably—Jesus Christ, it’s been so long, would there be anything left of him?” And there it was, that asthma attack feeling, and Steve did not want to do this in front of Tony. But it was too late now. He put his head in his hands and cried the way he had in that bombed out bar in 1945.

He heard Tony sit down at the table next to him. “Okay, um, I don’t know how to deal with this.” He felt Tony’s hand land awkwardly on his shoulder, and he tried to get himself under control.

“So, this is super awkward. But, uh, you’re allowed to cry, or whatever. I would really prefer we both be drunk for this, Rhodey and I were totally wasted when we reached this point in the grieving process after my parents died, but I guess you can’t get drunk, which is tragic enough to make you cry even more, probably, so.”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh a little at the situation. He scrubbed at his face and did his best to pull himself together.

“Thanks,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to stay, I’m fine.”

Tony snorted in disbelief. “You are _not_ fine.”

“Yeah, well, I’m as fine as I’m going to get,” said Steve, a little annoyed now.

“I’m not leaving you here to be sad and tragic and alone, Steve. That seems…bad.” Tony sounded uncertain now.

_Geeze_ , thought Steve, _the Avengers have got to find someone who can actually handle feelings. We’re none of us great shakes at this._ Their collective awkwardness was frankly starting to seem kind of embarrassing.

“I could use some space, Tony.”

“C’mon, come with me, I was gonna go pry Bruce out of the lab for a meal not heated over a bunsen burner and eaten over a lab bench. Don’t sit here being a sad panda when you can eat your feelings instead,” wheedled Tony.

Steve sighed and gave in. “Fine. Let me go get ready.”

****

His embarrassing breakdown in front of Tony had apparently bought Steve some time when it came to avoiding the rest of the Avengers’ aggressive concern for his mental health, because no one else tried to start any awkward heart-to-hearts. Steve assumed that Tony had told them he hadn’t completely lost it and to let him work through his grief on his own. After all, they were all busy people who didn’t exactly live in each others’ pockets. No one had much time to spare for worrying about Steve. So Steve retreated to his apartment in Brooklyn in between SHIELD missions, and hoped Tony was right about SHIELD not being able to monitor his online activity on the StarkPad Tony had supplied him with. Because Steve was grimly reading up on everything he could about grief and mental illness and dreams.

None of it particularly helped. His therapist had already talked to him about post-traumatic stress disorder and how it wasn’t just battle fatigue. She made gentle suggestions about how to deal with his anxieties, and increasingly not-so-gentle suggestions about how he should really talk to her about Bucky. But Steve didn’t want to talk to her about Bucky, didn’t know how to. He didn’t know how to distill twenty years of friendship and love and the hole their loss left, didn’t know how to say that he wasn’t sure who he was without Bucky. Talking to a stranger wouldn’t bring Bucky back.

As the last dog days of summer bled into fall, Bucky didn’t appear in his dreams every night. Some nights Steve didn’t dream, or didn’t remember dreaming. Some nights he dreamed the way he used to, unaware and jumbled. For a while, Steve thought it was over, and felt equal parts relieved and desperate. If dreaming about Bucky had been a sort of insanity, well at least it had been harmless, and at least he had gotten Bucky back, in a screwed up sort of way.

He even finally brought the dreams up with his therapist, who said all the right things about the dreams just being his mind’s way of dealing with his grief. _Maybe you have some things you need to say to him_ , she had suggested. _Sometimes, we need to take our goodbyes however we can get them_. 

****

When Steve next saw Bucky, it was in a dream where Steve was half-heartedly recreating his favorite part of Central Park. Lucid dreaming just wasn’t as exciting as Bruce had suggested. Steve couldn’t turn off his artist brain, and by now mostly treated his lucid dreams as if they were a sketchpad or canvas, foregoing the wild adventures Bruce had alluded to in favor of trying his hand at making art in the dream world. Tonight, he was dabbling in impressionism. He hoped that if he was visited by Bucky again, this would be a setting conducive to talking. If this was how his brain had decided to deal with his grief, then he wanted to get it over with.

He hadn’t counted on how jarring it would be to see Bucky suddenly appear, sharp and alarmingly real against the hazy pastels Steve had conjured. Bucky simply blinked in, like the image from a television turning on, and came straight towards Steve.

“Hey Bucky,” Steve said, and braced himself for his latest brush with insanity.

Bucky grabbed his shoulders and searched his face desperately. Bucky’s left hand felt weird, but Steve barely spared it a thought. Bucky was looking at him like Steve was the ghost.

“You’re dead, aren’t you?” Bucky looked wrecked, saying it.

Steve blinked at him in confusion. “No, you’re dead. Bucky, I’m trying to do this whole stages of grief thing, but this isn’t--”

Bucky took his hands off Steve’s shoulders and squinted at him quizzically. “But it’s been--it’s been so long, I think. It’s gotta be 2000-something, so far as I can remember. You’d be ninety years old by now at least. Either you’re dead, or you’re just in my head, or I don’t know what.”

“I’m not dead! You’re the one who’s in my head. You’re just my messed up brain not letting you go, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry you were even on that train, I know I should have saved you--”

“Well, you’re definitely not just in my head, or we’d be doing something way more interesting than you constantly goddamn apologizing,” said Bucky, looking annoyed.

Steve could only gape at Bucky. He knew he shouldn’t expect any better of dreams, but so much of what Bucky said in these dreams didn’t make any sense to him.  Bucky speaking complete gibberish or repeating conversations they had had in life would have made more sense than this. Steve had tried populating these lucid dreams with someone other than the nameless extras who were just another part of the scenery, but when he did, either they were like an automaton, or they simply acted out their part as if in a movie. Surely if this was just some elaborate way of talking to himself, he would have more control over Bucky? If this was just in Steve’s head, why didn’t it follow any of the scripts Steve expected it to? He couldn’t help the treacherous thought that maybe it wasn’t in his head, maybe this really was Bucky. But that was impossible. It had to be impossible.

“That’s what this is for though, isn’t it? I’m supposed to apologize or let go of my guilt or something, and you’re supposed to say ‘It wasn’t your fault’ and ‘you need to let go’ and ‘I’ll always be with you in spirit.’ And then I wake up and feel better and this all _stops_.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Well, I told you it wasn’t your fault already! And buddy, I’d tell you to let go, but I just got you back and I don’t ever want to lose you again. I don’t want to forget you again.” At that, Bucky’s expression turned intense and mulish, with that set in his jaw that suggested he would not be moved.

Steve was beginning to think he should make his peace with the idea that he had gone completely insane. Surely it would only be a matter of time until Bucky showed up in his waking hours and Steve started talking to his invisible dead best friend. _Poor Captain America, all that time in the ice must have really scrambled his brains_ , people would say. Maybe he should just embrace his insanity. If this was the only way he’d ever get something of Bucky back, wasn’t it worth it?

Steve gave up on the whole “goodbye, I love you and I’ll miss you” speech he had been going for, and tried his best to smile. “How could you forget me? I’m always gonna be here to remind you, jerk.”

“Punk. And you’re not getting it.” Frustration and resignation warred on Bucky’s face as the dream started fading into gray.

Steve woke up, and wondered what the hell his mind or subconscious was up to.

****

The next dream Bucky appeared in didn’t start out as a lucid one. And it was more of a nightmare than a dream: Steve didn’t dream of the final fight with Schmidt and bringing the Valkyrie down that often, but he absolutely hated it when he did. It made him wake up disoriented and terrified that this was the first time he was waking up after the ice, that it was everything else that had been a dream. It always took hours for the anxiety to wear off.

The plane had started its too long descent into the icy ocean when Bucky suddenly materialized in the cockpit and Steve felt himself wrenched forcefully into lucidity. 

“What the _fuck_ , Steve.”

“Um.”

The noise of the plane went abruptly silent when Steve found himself facing an alarmed and confused Bucky.

“Stevie. What the fuck is happening here?” The water was still rushing up towards them through the cockpit window, but somehow they never hit the surface of the sea.

Steve wasn’t sure why his mind would need to tell Bucky how he had “died,” but maybe there was a point to this.

“HYDRA had a bomb that would have killed millions, and I had to keep Schmidt from dropping the payload. I brought the plane down somewhere in the Arctic. And then I was frozen for seventy years, but I guess the serum kept me alive, and SHIELD—who are the new SSR, pretty much—thawed me out a while back. I’ve been working with them since then.” It was a much abbreviated and simplified version of events, but what the hell. He didn’t have to explain himself to a figment of his imagination.

“You were frozen,” repeated Bucky flatly. Bucky’s expression had gone unreadable. Steve didn’t like it. He thought he knew all of Bucky’s expressions.

“…Yes?” 

“And what the hell made you think the suicide play was the way to go?”

_Oh_. Bucky was mad at him, the way Bucky got quietly furious when Steve would push himself too far, or get into a fight that was a little too dangerous. It was a fury that rarely found its outlet in Steve himself. Bucky used to just get that tight look around his eyes, and maybe he’d say something low and angry before all his anger melted away and he gently inspected Steve’s latest bruise or checked his temperature. It was the same now, and the ache that hadn’t really gone away since Bucky fell off that train flared up bright and sharp.

“Didn’t really have any other options.”

“Bullshit,” said Bucky, but he had already softened a little, and something faltered and broke open in the look on his face. “You’re alive though? You made it?” he asked urgently.

Steve smiled sadly and answered, “Yeah, Buck. I’m alive. I just wish you were too.”

The plane finally hit the water and sound rushed back into the dream along with the water. Steve woke up gasping, for once sure of exactly what year he was waking into.

****

Given that Steve’s prior experiences with grieving and the advice of his well-meaning teammates weren’t helping him deal with his own personal ghost, he decided to go back to the drawing board. His mother’s death had been hard, but coming as it had after a long illness, it had been its own sort of relief too. They had had time to say goodbye, to make any amends, to say I love you. Well, Steve had tried saying goodbye to Bucky and making amends. That left I love you.

Bucky had known Steve loved him, hadn’t he? Steve had certainly never doubted that Bucky loved him. It hadn’t needed saying. It had been obvious in everything Bucky had done for Steve in Brooklyn: every fight he finished, every asthma attack he soothed Steve through, every bedside vigil when Steve was sick, every double date he dragged Steve on. Bucky had told Steve once that he’d be there for him until the end of the line. Steve had never doubted it.

It was true that Steve hadn’t been able to do as much for Bucky as Bucky had for Steve. That imbalance had always eaten at Steve’s sense of fairness. Bucky had deserved better than always having to look after Steve, when Steve could do precious little to look after Bucky. Saving Bucky from that HYDRA factory had only repaid some small part of the enormous debt Steve owed him. Still, loving Bucky was automatic. It was part of the foundation of Steve’s life. Surely Bucky had known?

But then, there was the thing Steve had tried hard to make sure Bucky hadn’t known. When he was a teenager, he had thought it was just an inevitable result of their closeness. Bucky was handsome and the person Steve knew best, so maybe it wasn’t surprising that he had looked at Bucky’s mouth, and wanted to kiss it, that he had looked at Bucky’s hands, and wanted them on him. Steve had done his best to shove such thoughts into the darker corners of his mind. Bucky had liked girls, and girls had liked him. And Steve liked girls, it was just that he liked boys too, and Bucky most of all. But Steve had decided early on that he wouldn’t risk Bucky’s friendship to indulge his lust.

Steve could be honest with himself now, though, now that there was nothing to lose. It had been more than lust. Or at least, it hadn’t only been lust. What Steve felt for Bucky wasn’t the fast, head-over-heels love he had felt for Peggy. And Steve _did_ love Peggy, would have married her after the war, if after the war hadn’t meant seventy years and a lifetime later. But, Steve realized miserably, he had been in love with Bucky too, in an abiding and inescapable way. It was just that he had so thoroughly convinced himself that friendship was enough and nothing else could ever happen. Forget risking Bucky’s friendship, homosexuality was effectively illegal back then and one of both of them could have ended up in jail or worse. And legality aside, Steve had known there could be no kind of future for them: Steve had never expected to live much past thirty. Bucky had deserved better. That wouldn’t be a problem now, and apparently something in Steve’s mind knew it and wouldn’t let it go. Maybe if he told dream-Bucky, it would be enough to make this stop.

So one night, Steve recreated the apartment he and Bucky had shared before the war. No one would mistake it for nice by 21st century standards, and not even Steve’s nostalgia could gloss over its grimy and cramped confines. It had been their home though. He sat on the lumpy couch and waited for Bucky.

When Bucky came, it was through the front door, as if it were the end of any other day in 1943. Dream-Bucky still looked different than any of Steve’s memories of him, with his long hair and strange uniform. Steve uneasily put that down to the strangeness of dreams.

“Hey Bucky. Figured I’d pick a place a little nicer than a crashing plane,” said Steve gesturing vaguely to the apartment.

“Not much nicer. Hope you’re living somewhere better than this shithole now,” responded Bucky as he sat down next to Steve. He didn’t flop down like he usually had when he had come home from work. Instead he sat almost gingerly, as if it was a stranger’s couch and not their own.

“Aw, this was our shithole though. But yeah, my apartment’s alright. Weird without you,” he said, bumping Bucky with his shoulder. Bucky hesitated a moment before he nudged Steve back.

Steve looked down at his hands, and considered how to say what he had to say to Bucky. There was no point being embarrassed or scared, after all. This was all in his head. 

“I’ve been thinking of all the things I never got the chance to say to you.”

“Steve—”

“No, let me do this.” Steve turned to look at Bucky. “I love you. I’m sorry I never said it, before. I’m sorry I never _showed_ it enough.”

Bucky went entirely still, eyes wide and shocked.

“I love you,” repeated Steve. “And not just like a brother. I was—I _am_ , in love with you. I’m only sorry I was never brave enough to tell you.”

Steve studied Bucky’s face nervously, unsure how to interpret his silence and his stillness, and decided _fuck it_. He leaned in to kiss Bucky. But Bucky reared back and scrambled to the other end of the couch, his breath coming fast.

“We didn’t do this, before.”

“I—what?” asked Steve, baffled. It was frankly cruel of his subconscious to deny him even a fake, dream kiss with Bucky. It wasn't even like it would be the first time. Steve had woken up hard and aching from dreams of Bucky before, dreams where they had done considerably more than just kiss. 

“We never did this, before. Right? I’d remember that. I’m sure I’d remember that,” said Bucky, voice urgent and eyes fixed on Steve.

“No. No, we didn’t,” said Steve slowly. 

Bucky’s breath evened and he glared at Steve. “We are not kissing for the first time in a dream where you think I’m still dead.”

“What?” repeated Steve, gobsmacked.

“You heard me.” Bucky narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. “We are not kissing in a _dream,_ while I am in a _freezer_. If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it right. I love you, Steve, but no.”

“What do you mean, do it right? You want me to wait until we meet at the pearly gates or something? Bucky, I’m trying to—”

Bucky threw up his hands and got off the couch. “I told you, I’m _not dead_. And I can’t believe you chose _now_ to make your grand declaration of love! We do this when we’re both awake, or not at all.”

Bucky left the apartment, and Steve woke with the slam of the front door. He brought his hands to his face and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Either this was the most perverse and strange haunting ever, or Steve had really and truly lost it.

****

A few nights passed until the next time Steve saw Bucky in his dreams. This time, Bucky was waiting for him, and Steve had no conscious hand in the dream’s setting. It was Coney Island in full summer, though all the rides were stopped and the crowds were an indistinct blur. Steve’s attention went immediately to Bucky’s left arm, and any thoughts he had about continuing their last conversation flew out of his mind. Bucky was for once not wearing the vaguely military uniform he always had before in these dreams. He was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, indistinguishable from any other modern twenty-something. His left arm was covered—made?—entirely of metal. Steve felt some of the feverish edge that had first accompanied these dreams return. 

Bucky beamed at him from his seat on a bench. “I think I’m finally getting the hang of this! Less depressing than our shitty apartment or a plane crashing into the Arctic, right?”

Steve joined Bucky on the bench. “Bucky, what’s—what’s wrong with your arm?”

“What? Oh, right,” Bucky’s smile dimmed, and his eyes narrowed. “What do you care, you still think I’m a ghost or a figment of your imagination.”

“If you’re not a ghost or a figment of my imagination, then what are you?”

Bucky looked away at that, his mouth twisting in a mirthless smile. “Been trying to figure that out.”

“You still didn’t answer my first question. What happened to your arm?”

“Left it in that ravine in the Alps, I guess.”

Steve felt himself—or maybe it was the dream—go cold. “You died in that ravine.”

“Yes and no.”

“Bucky, I’ve got no clue what’s going on. If I’m not dreaming you up, if you’re not dead—” Steve couldn’t even finish saying it. If Bucky wasn’t dead in the Alps somewhere, then where was he, other than in Steve’s dreams? If this was actually Bucky in his dreams, what the hell was happening? Steve couldn’t afford to hope for the impossible. He didn’t think his apparently fragile sanity could take it. But maybe, maybe—Steve could barely even let himself think it. Maybe Steve hadn’t been the only one to spend the past seventy years in the ice. He quashed the thought quickly. Denial was just the first stage of grief, he told himself.

“I’m not dead. And I guess you’ve only got my word for it, but you’re not dreaming me up. Thought I was dreaming you up, at first.” Bucky gestured to his head. “Everything’s all messed up in here. I didn’t remember—they made me forget. But something’s gone wrong, I’m dreaming and it’s all coming back. I _remember_ now.”

“Remember what?”

“Who I am. What they made me.” At that, Bucky’s face took on the same hard set it did behind a rifle scope. As usual, Steve wasn’t sure what Bucky was talking about, but he couldn’t help reassuring him.

“Hey, you’re Bucky Barnes, my best friend. You’re Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, Howling Commando. No one can make you anything else you don’t want to be.”

Bucky looked at him with hopeless disbelief. “I wish to god that were true.” He ran his flesh and blood hand over his face. “Fuck, what am I even doing. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this. I’m not the Bucky you knew anymore.” Bucky got up and walked away. “Wake up, Steve.”

The dream abruptly disappeared in a dizzying lurch, and Steve struggled towards consciousness. When he woke, it was hours until dawn. He lay in bed and went over every dream of Bucky he’d had, examined them with the same attention he paid mission briefings or after action reports of missions gone wrong. He didn’t like the conclusions he reached.

****

Of course, just when Steve was starting to think he maybe wasn’t crazy, that maybe there was something real happening with the Bucky in his dreams, Bucky stubbornly stayed out of his head. It filled him with a nervous, faintly panicked energy and the sense that he should be doing something, anything, to find Bucky. But this wasn’t like when he found out the 107th had been captured by HYDRA. Steve didn’t have a location or reliable intel, he just had dreams. Dreams that might just be in his own head. He was tempted to go to that ravine in the Alps and search for Bucky there just to have something to _do_. 

Instead, every night, Steve focused his thoughts on Bucky before he fell asleep, hoping that it would bring him back somehow. His dreams remained stubbornly formless though. The more he chased sleep, the less likely it was to come. And then he was off on a week-long mission for SHIELD, and sleep was even harder to come by. 

Towards the end of the mission, he managed to snatch a few hours before they made their final move on the group of arms smugglers they had been tracking. It wasn’t a restful sleep. His dreams were a rushed and kinetic mess of the past week and his anxieties about the upcoming raid. When Bucky came into sharp focus and inexorably pulled the dream into lucidity, the scene of Natasha and the rest of the SHIELD team fighting the smugglers shifted from bewildering speed to agonizing slowness.

“Should’ve known you wouldn’t give up. You’ve been really loud, you know?” said Bucky, as he walked carefully around the scene of violence. He came to a halt in front of dream-Natasha, who was busy garroting a smuggler.

“You can’t just drop a bunch of vague stuff about forgetting and not being dead, and then disappear! If this is real, tell me something that will help me find you. Wherever you are, whatever happened to you, I will come for you, I promise. Just like I did when you were in that HYDRA factory. Even if—even if you are really dead, and all I’m finding is your body. Please, Bucky.”

Bucky was still frozen in front of Natasha. “Ask Natalia. Ask Natalia about the Winter Soldier. Ask her about the bullet in her hip, and who put it there.”

“You know Natasha? But how—”

“Ask her. If you still want to find me after she tells you what she knows—” Bucky frowned, and stepped away from Natasha to look at Steve. “Well, actually, I got no idea how you’re even gonna find me. I don’t know where I am. But if you still want to—”

“Why the hell wouldn’t I want to? You owe me a kiss, you jerk.”

“I told you Steve, I’m not the Bucky you knew anymore. Might be best to let me stay dead.”

“I won’t accept that.”

Bucky smiled tiredly at him. “Didn’t think you would.” Bucky took one last look around the dream, resting a calculating eye on the buildings surrounding the warehouse. “Is this the mission you’re on tomorrow? Because you better have a sniper up in that building down the block. Now get up, you’ve got a mission to run, Captain Rogers.”

Steve woke up to Natasha shaking him awake. “Rogers, we’ve gotta go.”

As they finished prepping for the raid, Steve remembered the last thing Bucky said.

“Hey, I think we should put someone in that building down the block, pick off any stragglers.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow at the last minute change, but nodded her assent. When the sniper stationed on the roof of the building took out a smuggler who had been about to shoot Steve, it almost felt like Bucky was watching his six again.

****

After an uneventful and boring debrief, Steve cornered Natasha in one of the few dead zones in SHIELD’s New York HQ that was out of sight of any security cameras. Its existence was an open secret, and the little nook was mostly used by SHIELD agents for gossip, relationship drama, and the furtive starting of betting pools. The camera blind spot would have been fixed long ago, but since enough people passed by the spot often enough and it was within sightline of the security station down the hall, it wasn’t seen as enough of a security breach to do anything about. Natasha definitely knew about it, because she raised a deeply inquisitive eyebrow as he maneuvered her into it.

“Hey, can you come by my apartment tonight?”

“Steven Grant Rogers, are you trying to schedule a _hookup_?” Her voice was low but undeniably amused, and Steve knew he was blushing furiously.

“ _No_! I just need to talk to you about something. Privately, no eyes watching and no one listening in.”

Natasha knew that he didn’t entirely trust SHIELD. They hadn’t made the best first impression with that botched attempt at making him think it was still the 40s, and the business with the Tesseract and the Chitauri hadn’t helped. Natasha may not have had the same doubts as him, but she didn’t trust SHIELD blindly, and he was fairly certain she would indulge his paranoia and desire for privacy. She searched his face closely for a moment. Whatever she saw there must have convinced her of the seriousness of his request, because she nodded.

“Okay, I’ll come by tonight. I’ll bring dinner. Have you had Thai yet?” She gestured with her head to start walking again, and they moved out of the blind spot, talking casually about Steve’s continued 21st century food education.

Natasha showed up at his apartment that night, with Thai food as promised. She put her finger to her lips as she chatted about the food (spicy) and Clint’s dog (a travesty, but undeniably cute), and pulled out and turned on some sort of gadget that she set on the kitchen table. 

“One of Stark’s toys, should keep us from being overheard.”

“SHIELD has my apartment bugged?” Steve asked. It didn’t particularly surprise him. Natasha shrugged eloquently, clearly unwilling to confirm or deny.

“What’s this about, Steve?” asked Natasha as they set out the food.

“What do you know about the Winter Soldier?”

Natasha went abruptly still, and her face smoothed into its blank, give away nothing mask. Steve found himself holding his breath: he would find out soon enough if he was headed to a secure SHIELD psychiatric facility or not.

“Where did you hear that name?”

“Natasha, just answer me: what do you know about the Winter Soldier?”

“He’s a ghost, a myth in the intelligence community. A legendary assassin credited with dozens of kills over fifty years. Either it’s a codename that’s passed on, or he’s not all human. Steve, _where did you hear that name_?”

Steve felt a moment of intense vertigo as his desperate suspicion and hope that the dreams were something more than just dreams found purchase in the waking world. But no, maybe he had heard the name somewhere in the halls of SHIELD HQ, maybe he had come across it in some mission report. Steve swallowed and met Natasha’s eyes as evenly as he could. He could tell she was alarmed and losing patience.

“Did he shoot you? In the hip?”

Shock flickered across Natasha’s face. “How did you know that?”

Steve felt like all the air left his lungs, and the months of dreaming about Bucky—apparently the real Bucky—came crashing in on him. All of Bucky’s mentions of the mysterious “they,” of being made to forget, of _what they made me_ came into sickening clarity. Steve’s most desperate, unlikely hopes had been that maybe Bucky had just been frozen and lost like him, waiting to be found and thawed out. That, Steve was beginning to understand, had been a vain, childish hope. Something worse had happened to Bucky.

Steve managed to choke out one last question: “Was his left arm made out of metal?” 

“…Yes. Steve, this is important. I need you to tell me how you know about this. Have you seen the Winter Soldier?” Steve stared blankly at Natasha as he tried to make the seemingly impossible confirmation of his dreams make sense.

“Oh god. It’s real, _he’s real_.” Steve let out a burst of laughter that he knew sounded hysterical, and struggled to catch his breath. 

“Steve, you aren’t making any sense. Have you seen the Winter Soldier? Because if you have, we’ve got a problem.”

“I’ve seen Bucky. Bucky told me all that. I think—I think he’s the Winter Soldier.”

“Bucky. Your dead best friend Bucky Barnes.”

“I know you must think I’m crazy. I thought maybe I was too, I thought it was just grief. But you just confirmed what Bucky told me, and I don’t know how else I could have known.”

“When did he tell you, Steve? Is he here with us right now?” This was definitely Natasha’s soothing, talking to a crazy person voice, thought Steve with annoyance.

“He’s not my imaginary dead best friend. It’s—remember when I told you I was dreaming about Bucky?”

“You’re telling me he told you all this in a dream.”

“Believe me, I know how this sounds, Natasha.”

“It sounds like you’re crazy. Explain.”

Steve did his best to do so, starting with his suspicion that Zola had done some kind of experimenting on Bucky in the HYDRA factory to the very first dreams and the ones that followed. He tried to stay dispassionate, relaying only the facts. He wasn’t sure how successful he was. Natasha kept her eyes locked on him the entire time. When he finished, she was silent for a long moment. Then she leaned forward towards him, and put her hand on his.

“There’s a logical explanation for this, you know. You’ve lost one of the most important people in your life, and you’re grieving. It’s no surprise he’s going to show up in your dreams. And maybe you’re reaching for any possible way he could still be alive, and it’s all getting mixed up with stuff from SHIELD files. It’s understandable,” Natasha said gently.

“Was him shooting you in any of the files?”

Natasha pressed her lips together and leaned away from him, withdrawing her hand. “No. I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Tehran. The Winter Soldier shot him, through me. I reported him as an unknown assailant.”

“Why?”

“Last thing I needed was for SHIELD to think I was fucking with them, bringing up the Winter Soldier. It hadn’t been that long since Clint had brought me in. The Soldier’s the boogeyman to assassins, no one would have believed me, and I couldn’t afford the hit to my credibility.”

“So how did I know? Tell me, because I’d love an explanation for this that isn’t—” Steve had to swallow against the lump in his throat at the thought of what had happened—-what might still be happening—to Bucky. “That isn’t Bucky being the Winter Soldier somehow.”

“It could have been a lucky guess. The mind can come up with intensely detailed scenarios from things your conscious mind was barely aware of noticing. That, plus your understandable desire to have your best friend back…”

“No. You think I wasn’t thinking that the whole time? That I was fooling myself trying to come up with some way that Bucky was still alive? But if this is a delusion, this isn’t the delusion I would have come up with. When I thought—when I thought Bucky might still be alive, when I had a stupid hope that he might be, I thought, ‘Maybe what Zola did to him meant he froze, like I did. Maybe he’s just frozen and waiting somewhere in that ravine.’ But he’s not. Someone’s made him into—into this Winter Soldier, I know it. The things he said, they way he was in the beginning of the dreams, it’s like they tampered with his memories. I’ve gotta find him.”

“You can’t save everyone, Steve. Whatever’s happened, whether this is real or not, there might not be any saving your friend.”

“I know. But I gotta try. I’ve gotta know what’s going on. Do you believe me?” He kept his eyes on Natasha’s, and hoped he looked more sincere than crazy. She didn’t seem like she was particularly convinced. She just looked worried.

After a long moment of meeting his pleading stare, she relented. “Maybe. How about you see what you dream tonight. Get me more intel, something real, and we’ll see. Now c’mon, we’ve still got all this food.”

****

Unsurprisingly, Natasha stayed the night. Steve knew she wouldn’t actually sleep: she was probably planning to slip into his bedroom to watch him sleep in an effort to figure out what was happening to him.  

If Bucky thought Steve had been loud before, thought Steve grimly, he’d change his mind when he “heard” Steve now, however it was that he was hearing Steve. That night, Steve focused on Bucky with even more intensity, not letting his thoughts stray from the litany of Bucky’s name and the image of his face. When Steve finally fell asleep and into a dream, Bucky was waiting.

“Jesus Christ Steve, keep it down. I was gonna show anyway,” Bucky said, looking disgruntled. The dream this time was hazy and ill-formed, except for Bucky, who was as clear as ever against the vague background.

“Bucky, you’ve got to be straight with me. What’s happened to you? What’s going on?”

“Did you ask about the Winter Soldier?”

“Yes! Is it you? Are you the Winter Soldier?”

Bucky looked at him, and it wasn’t Steve’s Bucky looking out of his eyes, the Bucky who had told him he’d be there ‘til the end of the line. It wasn’t Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes either, the almost frighteningly competent sniper and loyal commando. It was someone colder and harder, and for a moment, Bucky’s eyes were empty of anything that Steve recognized as the man he loved.

“Yes.”

“Natasha said the Winter Soldier’s been credited for dozens of kills in the past fifty years. Were they all you?”

“Probably.”

“How—”

Bucky burst into movement, turning away from him and pacing. “How? You really wanna know _how_? With rifles and knives and bombs and my bare fucking hands. There is so much blood on my hands, Steve, and I didn’t feel _anything_ —”

“How did they make you do it, because that ain’t you, Bucky. I _know_ you. And you said they made you forget, that they took things from you. How? Who are they?”

“HYDRA,” said Bucky flatly.

“No.” Steve shook his head in disbelief. “No, I brought that plane down with Schmidt on it. HYDRA was supposed to be finished after that. It was supposed to be _over_.”

“Well, you know what they used to say. Cut off one head…” Bucky shrugged and looked away.

Steve looked at Bucky in horror, and felt sick. He thought he had rescued Bucky from that HYDRA factory and that they would never get their hands on him again. Apparently, Steve had only gained Bucky a brief reprieve. Apparently, Steve had failed Bucky more than he ever even knew.

“What did they do to you?”

Bucky frowned almost absently. “I can’t—there aren’t really words for it. They just—emptied me out. Wiped me clean, made me forget—everything. I just had missions then they’d wipe me and put me back in cryo and then they’d take me out and wipe me again and I’d complete the mission, and they’d wipe me and put me back in cryo and then there’d be another mission and they’d wipe me—” Bucky’s voice grew increasingly frantic throughout his litany and his eyes were terrified and unseeing.

Steve grabbed Bucky by the shoulders and tried to pull his attention from whatever horrors he was reliving. “Bucky, look at me. Look at me, it’s Steve, I’m here and I’m gonna find you, they won’t do it again. Bucky—”

Bucky’s eyes briefly focused on Steve’s, but the blank terror in them didn’t go away. “I’m in the cryo chamber _right now_. They could pull me out any time, and I’d lose this, all of this—”

“You’ve gotta hang on, Buck. I swear, I _will_ find you. Please, just—”

“ _How_? I don’t know where I am!”

Steve could feel himself waking up, and struggled to stay in the dream with Bucky. But it was too late: he woke up, abruptly aware of his pounding heart and gasping breath. 

“Steve?” Natasha’s voice came low and even from where she was sitting on the other side of his bed. He rolled away from her and tried to calm himself. It wasn’t working. Bucky had looked so terrified. HYDRA had Bucky. Again. 

“Steve, I could tell you were dreaming. Your eyes were moving. Tell me what you were dreaming about.”

“Bucky said HYDRA has him,” Steve managed to choke out. He knew how it sounded. It was all too easy to imagine that it was just a nightmare, just one more awful scenario for his mind to torture him with. He could practically hear Natasha thinking it in the silence. Steve closed his eyes and heard Natasha moving off the bed.

“I’m gonna turn the light on.”

When she did, Steve opened his eyes to see her come around to his side of the bed and kneel in front of him to study his face. He didn’t know what she was seeing there. Steve just knew this wasn’t the time or place for a debrief, and that Natasha was keeping this conversation in the intimate bounds of his bedroom for a reason. 

“He said they emptied him out. He said they’d give him a mission, then wipe him, then put him in ‘cryo,’ and then they’d do it all over again. I don’t know what he meant, but he looked so scared. I’ve never seen him look like that. And what does cryo mean?”

At that, Natasha reared back a little and got to her feet, gesturing toward the door with a curt toss of her head. Steve followed her into the kitchen and sat at the table while she busied herself making coffee. Steve wasn’t sure what her silence meant, but he was too unsettled by the dream still to press her much yet. She was clearly working up to something.

“So? What does cryo mean? I can add it to my notebook, but I figure you know.”

Natasha finally turned to face him and sat at the table. Everything about her was carefully still and controlled, which probably meant that she was upset.

“Cryostasis. Preserving a body and its tissues by freezing. It’s not supposed to work on living subjects.”

“Oh.” Bucky’s references to the cold made more sense now.

Natasha was silent for a moment, and then looked carefully into the distance. “What you said he told you. About being emptied out, wiped. That was a procedure the Red Room used. When I was with Soviet intelligence, I was trained by the Red Room. They used it on me, a few times. Only Clint and Fury know.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I believe you. I don’t know how this is happening or why, but I believe you. Considering we’ve met a god and fought invading aliens, I guess the Winter Soldier being Bucky Barnes and somehow showing up in your dreams isn’t that weird.”

Steve felt a wave of relief and gratitude almost overwhelm him. He was more than willing to try to find Bucky on his own, but just as when Howard and Peggy had helped him rescue Bucky and the 107th, it meant a lot to have support.

“Thank you,” said Steve quietly.

The coffee machine beeped, and Steve got up to pour them a couple of cups. They weren’t likely to be going back to sleep anytime soon.

“So now what? Bucky doesn’t know where he is. I’m not sure how much he’s going to be able to tell me. I don’t even know how we’re doing this. Where do we even start?” asked Steve as he set out the milk and sugar.

Natasha stirred some milk into her coffee and frowned thoughtfully.

“Let’s keep SHIELD out of this for now. I think we should go see Stark and Banner first, while they’re both in New York. Clint’s on that mission with the STRIKE team, and we need some science before we get any further.”

Steve could imagine trying to explain this to Stark, and snorted to himself. Bruce would be nice about it at least, but Steve didn’t think Bruce would believe him either. 

“Do you really think that’ll go well?”

“I’m hoping they’ll have some ideas about what’s going on in your brain. There’s not much else to do until you can get more intel from Barnes.”

“We know it’s HYDRA. We can follow up on that, at least.”

“And you’re sure Barnes wasn’t confused? He might have been thinking about when Zola had him. If they have been wiping him, then his head’s going to be a mess.”

Steve couldn’t dismiss the possibility out of hand. “I guess you’re right. Stark and Banner it is.”

They spent the rest of the early morning hashing out a plan of action. Part of Steve was still frantic to take some action to find Bucky, but it was enough for now to have a start. It was more hope than Steve had had since 1945.

****

Steve and Natasha spent the rest of the day at SHIELD HQ, since they were expected for some training and meetings. Natasha had told Tony and Bruce to expect them, though not why. So Steve was bombarded with a series of texts from Tony about what he wanted for dinner and if they were attempting proper team bonding, or if Natasha had any nefarious plots in mind. Steve ignored most of them: they were just making him antsier.

When they finally made it to Stark Tower that evening, Steve felt far more impatient and on edge than was good for a meeting with Tony Stark. Natasha’s glare and, Bruce later informed him, a firm request from an out-of-town Pepper, kept Tony relatively well behaved throughout dinner though. They all got through dinner by making inconsequential small talk about work and the continued rebuilding after what was now being called the Battle of New York. 

Tony finally lost patience when they got to post-dinner coffee.

“Okay, what’s this really about? I know you two didn’t come here for dinner and a chat, only Bruce appreciates my company on a regular basis, and even that’s debatable.”

“I’d like you to do a scan of my brain, please.”

Bruce peered at Steve over his glasses. “Is there…a particular reason you’d like us to do that, and not SHIELD medical?”

“I’d prefer to keep this as private as possible, for now.”

“And it’s best if you’re not biased one way or the other as to the reason. You have Steve’s baseline results, right?” asked Natasha.

“Yeah, I keep those on hand, just in case. Worried about your sanity, Cap?” Tony looked at Steve shrewdly.

Bruce wisely headed off what promised to be minutes of wasted time spent bickering by herding them all to the labs. Tony had gone a little overboard with the reconstruction at the Tower after the whole thing with Loki, so now in addition to floors for each of the Avengers, there was an infirmary and medical lab space, plus the frankly ridiculous gym and training space. Steve couldn’t really fault Tony for all of it, because even if it was all excessive, it wasn’t entirely unreasonable. And it was certainly proving convenient now. 

When they got to the medical lab, Bruce directed Steve towards one of the many futuristic machines and proceeded to explain what it would do and what he needed Steve to do for the scan. Steve tried to sit through it with as much patience as he could muster. When the scan was finally over and Bruce stepped away to review the results, Steve just sat in tense silence while Tony picked at Natasha for more information.

“Well, as far as I can tell, your brain’s doing just fine, Steve. No tumors, lesions, or foreign objects. Your brain activity is also consistent with your baseline. I’m not seeing anything here for concern,” said Bruce as he returned with a Starkpad showing what Steve assumed was an image of his brain.

“That’s good, I guess,” said Natasha warily.

“You guess? What the hell is it that you two are worried about?” asked Tony with some alarm.

Steve turned to Bruce. “Remember when I asked you about lucid dreams, Bruce?”

“Yeah, and I told you, there’s nothing wrong with you if you lucid dream…”

“I’ve been dreaming of Bucky. Or no—Bucky’s been in my dreams, and I haven’t been the one dreaming him up. He’s not dead.”

Tony and Bruce stared at Steve. Steve was getting uncomfortably familiar with the “oh no, he’s crazy,” look.

“Steve’s not explaining this well,” said Natasha while shooting him an exasperated glare. “Steve and I have reason to believe that Bucky Barnes survived that fall in the Alps thanks to getting some version of the Serum from Arnim Zola’s experimentation, that Barnes is the operative known as the Winter Soldier, and that he’s being held and used against his will. Steve’s source for this intel is….unconventional.”

“Visions in a dream? Yeah, unconventional is one word for it,” scoffed Tony. 

Steve could feel his hackles rise, and almost rose to the bait, but Natasha continued before they could derail everything into a screaming argument. “Yes, Barnes has been making appearances in Steve’s dreams. We’re aware of how crazy this sounds. But Steve relayed some information from Barnes that Steve couldn’t have known himself, and I’m absolutely certain about that.”

Natasha met Tony’s challenging stare evenly, and Steve was suddenly, overwhelmingly grateful that he had Natasha on his side. He knew that Natasha had to have some doubts, but she was backing him now as if she didn’t. 

“I know how this sounds. But please, can you monitor or scan me while I’m sleeping so we can see if something’s going on? If I’m crazy, that’s fine. I just—I need to know.”

“Okay, we’re gonna have a science sidebar over here, give us a sec,” said Bruce as he steered Tony, who was nearly vibrating with the urge to say something probably insensitive, away to a nearby lab bench. They whispered furiously together, Tony making emphatic gestures and Bruce nodding.

After a couple minutes of intense conversation, Bruce and Tony returned, and Bruce said, “Okay, we can do a sleep study, see what there is to see. But Steve…this might be a matter for you and your psychiatrist to pursue, okay? If we don’t find anything, I need you to promise me that you’ll seek out help from a qualified mental health professional.”

Steve clenched his jaw on his immediate angry response. Bruce was just trying to help, and Steve knew it all sounded insane. Arguing with Tony and Bruce wouldn’t help his cause any. “I promise, I will.”

“You can head on up to your room, I’ll get all the equipment ready and bring it up to you, okay?”

“Sure,” replied Steve. Everyone else started drifting toward the elevators.

“Let’s go over the results at breakfast, and see where we need to go from there. You sticking around, Stark?” asked Natasha.

“Much as I’d like to watch Capsicle here sleep, I’ve gotta get back to Malibu. I’m flying back tonight. Besides, this isn’t exactly my area of expertise. Have JARVIS send me the results, and gimme a call when you know if Cap van Winkle’s got a few screws loose or not,” said Tony as he beat a hasty retreat to the elevator. 

Steve and Natasha entered the other elevator. “I’m gonna try to catch some sleep. See you tomorrow morning, Steve.”

“Good night. And thank you. Again,” said Steve quietly to Natasha. She ducked her head in a curt nod in response, but a slight blush rose to her cheeks as she got off on her floor.

Steve felt his nerves return when he got to his room in the Tower. He was familiar with how the sleep study would go: SHIELD had subjected him to a battery of tests and scans in the first weeks after he had woken up. He knew they hadn’t found anything of concern. The time in the ice had apparently done him no lasting damage that they could find, and they had certainly looked hard enough. But he hadn’t had the dreams yet then, and Steve wasn’t sure if he wanted Bruce and Tony to find something or not. If they found something in this sleep study, would it mean there was something wrong with him, or would it mean this was real? At this point, he wasn’t quite sure what would be worse.

****

After Bruce had come to get Steve hooked up to the various medical devices and told him to let JARVIS know if he needed any help, Steve was left alone with his thoughts. It would be just his luck if Bucky refused to show tonight. And if he did show, did Steve have the strength to keep asking him about what had happened to him? It didn’t escape Steve that Bucky had never talked to him about what happened to him in that HYDRA factory. Steve hadn’t pressed: they’d had a war to fight, and they had both found themselves caught off balance by the changes the serum had wrought in Steve. Bucky was supposed to be the untouchable one, the one who could get banged up and keep going. With the tables turned, Steve hadn’t known what to do for Bucky other than be there. He wished now that he had asked more questions, pressed harder. He fell asleep with his regrets chasing themselves in his head.

No surprise then that when he dreamed, it was of one of dozens of indistinguishable, makeshift camps made in some forest in the middle of enemy territory. Memory—his or Bucky’s, he couldn’t tell—had rendered it in black and white, jittery like a newsreel. Bucky was sitting in front of one of the tents, and for a moment, Steve thought this was just a memory of Bucky. But no: Bucky was in color. The familiar blue of his eyes seemed like the most real thing in the world.

Steve walked to the tent to join him, and sat down next to him, like it was any other mission with the Howling Commandos. The rest of the camp was eerily empty and silent though. Steve knew they were the only living things in this dream. He couldn’t help but lean into Bucky, who stiffened for a moment before turning in towards him. They curled in towards each other the way they always had in front of campfires and in foxholes when they had the excuse of needing the shared heat.

“Really, Steve? Don’t tell me you miss this,” asked Bucky, gesturing to encompass the bleak surroundings.

“I miss _you_ ,” said Steve miserably into Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky let out a shaky sigh and said, “Sorry I freaked out earlier. I’m all kinds of fucked in the head, y’know?”

“Whatever they did to you—”

“Don’t. Please.”

“Okay. Okay. Just—where do you go, when you’re not with me?”

“Wander around my own dreams, I guess. Try to remember what I can. A lot of the time I’m asleep though, really asleep.”

“Is it you or me doing this? _How_ are we even doing this?”

Bucky snorted. “You’re asking me? Hell if I know. All I know is I can…hear you, sorta, when you’re falling asleep or dreaming. And I just think of you and where I want to be, and it happens. Or sometimes I end up in your dream instead of one of my own.”

“Well, I’m hooked up to some machines right now, maybe they’ll tell us what’s going on. Or maybe there’ll be nothing, and I’m about to get a nice stay in a padded room. Maybe you’re really dead.”

“Don’t start with that shit again, Steve,” chided Bucky, bumping his shoulder.

“Then I’m gonna do whatever it takes to find you. Bucky, you’ve gotta tell me everything you can about the people who have you.”

“Last time I was out of cryo was that mission where I shot Black Widow—Natalia. I don’t know what’s changed since then. They don’t exactly tell me much.”

“Yeah, about that: how do you know Natasha?”

“Don’t exactly _know_ her. Least, I don’t think so. I was briefed on her, knew she’d gone straight. And I know there was some overlap between the Russians and HYDRA. Shooting her was just part of the mission. There’s not much else to the Winter Soldier, other than the mission.”

“Well, that’s somewhere to start, I guess.”

“Guess there’s no way I’m talking you out of this, huh?”

Steve gaped at Bucky in disbelief. “What makes you think you can talk me out of this? You tell me that _HYDRA_ has you, that you’re being _tortured_ and forced to kill people, and you think I could leave you there? What the hell, Bucky?” 

Steve had to get up to pace his sudden anger off. Bucky looked up at him with a grim twist to his mouth. “This ain’t _safe_ , Steve. Even if you find me, it might not be _me_ you find. For all I know, they’re gonna wipe me again and I could _kill_ you and not even care, not even _know_. I would rather _die_ , do you understand me?”

That brought Steve to a halt. He stopped and kneeled in front of Bucky to meet his eyes. “Yeah, that’s not convincing me. I’m not leaving you, Bucky. All the things you’ve done for me, all the fights you finished when I couldn’t, all the times you stayed when I was sick…why do you think I wouldn’t do just as much for you?”

Bucky leaned forward to rest his forehead against Steve’s. They stayed still for a moment, lips close enough that he could feel Bucky’s warm breath. Steve brought his hand up to cup Bucky’s face and swayed forward a little, caught by the impulse to kiss Bucky, dream or no dream. But Bucky shook his head in reproach, and drew back as he huffed out a laugh and smiled wearily at him. “Alright. I got it. Guess you can be my knight in shining armor again.”

Of course, the dream chose then of all times to start dissolving. When Steve looked away from Bucky, the camp was turning blotchy and singed, like damaged film stock. He could hear the rattle of film flapping loose of a projector for a moment, before he was abruptly awake in his bed at the Tower. _Well_ , he thought, _time to face the music._

“JARVIS, can you let Bruce know I’m awake?”

“Certainly, Captain. Dr. Banner will arrive shortly.”

****

After Bruce had come by to deal with the various machines that had been monitoring Steve’s sleep and Steve had gotten dressed, he met Bruce and Natasha in the shared kitchen area for breakfast. Bruce was frowning over something he was looking at on his Starkpad. Steve wondered if that was good or bad news for him. 

“Did Barnes show up again?” asked Natasha.

“Yeah.” Steve made his way to the coffee machine and poured himself a cup. He examined the refrigerator’s stocked contents before settling on toast for breakfast. He was too nervous to consider eating anything else.

“And?” prompted Natasha.

“And I asked him how he thought he was doing this, and he said he didn’t know. That he could just hear me somehow, and would end up in my dreams. He said that when he isn’t…with me, he’s either asleep, really asleep, or in his own dreams.”

“Anything else?”

“Think I’d like to know what Bruce thinks first.”

Bruce looked up from the tablet. “Well, something’s definitely going on. Your PSG results—-that means polysomnography—weren’t in line with the baseline SHIELD medical had for you after you first woke up. And your EEG results while you were in REM sleep and dreaming are like nothing I’ve ever seen. There are some similarities to studies of lucid dreamers, but they’re not consistent with any known sleep disorders.”

“Is that—what does that mean?”

“I don’t have enough information to give you any real answers just yet. I’d like you to stay here for a week so I can get more data. Is there anything you can tell me about Bucky that could help explain this? Natasha mentioned Bucky might have received a version of the Supersoldier Serum. Did you notice any changes in him?”

“There wasn’t anything obvious. That Zola had done something to him made it into the reports, but Bucky didn’t know what all Zola did, and Phillips never pressed him. He got the all clear from Medical, and that was that. But…he maybe healed a bit faster, after that. And he slept less, but I didn’t think much of that. I know he didn’t always sleep well after…after his time in that HYDRA factory.”

“Anything else? Anything you can remember could help.”

Frustrated, Steve said, “You have to understand, I wasn’t with Bucky when he was with the 107th, so I don’t know what all was normal for his skills and what wasn’t. He was a damn good sniper, but I know he’d been that since Basic. He was a good fighter, but he’d been that since we were kids in Brooklyn. I don’t know, he kept up with me after I got the Serum, and he hated me fussing over him. So I tried not to press him too much. Trust me, I’m regretting that now.”

“Hmm. Well, it’s likely that any physical changes might not have seemed that pronounced, given that the only basis you had for comparison was your own more dramatic transformation.”

“And Schmidt ripping his own face off,” added Steve dryly.

“Right, that. You know I did a lot of research into the Serum. What the Serum could do to the mind was mostly a matter of speculation and difficult to quantify. We obviously know that it…can amplify certain non-quantifiable, non-physical qualities. Did you notice anything like that in Bucky?”

“We were at war. He wasn’t the same person he was in Brooklyn, but neither was I, and neither was any soldier. He was still _Bucky_ though.” Steve paused and thought hard for a moment. “Seemed like he picked up German and French real fast, after Zola. I didn’t think much of it then, Bucky was always top of the class when we were kids. He had a great head for maps and plans. If there was anything else…he didn’t say anything.”

“Is it totally outside the realm of possibility that Barnes is doing this? I’d have said it was last year, but then we fought a bunch of aliens and met some gods,” said Natasha.

Bruce smiled wryly and said, “Yeah, I’ve adjusted my personal standards for believability. And there’s honestly a lot we don’t know about the human brain. Zola’s experimentation triggering some heretofore unknown mental abilities isn’t the weirdest thing that could have happened.”

“Thank you, Bruce. We’re just on mission prep this week, so I’ll stay at the Tower this week like you said.”

“C’mon Rogers, we’ve got a briefing to get to.”

****

Steve did his best to focus on the briefing. As much as he wished differently, there wasn’t much to do for Bucky other than what they were already doing. Lack of information was their main enemy right now, and that wasn’t something Steve could solve with a fight. So he listened closely as Maria Hill laid out SHIELD’s suspicions about AIM and the parameters of the mission looking into it.

The week passed in a rush of mission planning, intelligence gathering, and of course, dreaming. Bucky was subdued, frustrated at his inability to provide any helpful information. But he remained either unwilling or unable to tell Steve any more about HYDRA and what had been done to him. And Steve was selfishly grateful to just have Bucky, because in some way, it felt like it was 1943 again and Bucky was coming home to their apartment, to Steve, after a long day. They had coaxed laughter out of each other then, had complained about the day they’d had, had gossiped about friends and neighbors. Now it wasn’t their apartment any more: instead Steve built dreamscapes for them, and talked to Bucky about SHIELD and his team and everything he was still getting used to in the 21st century. Bucky for his part stayed mostly quiet. It was unlike him, and Steve tried not to worry.

When the week was up, Steve met Bruce and Natasha in Bruce’s lab, with Tony video conferencing in. Tony looked somewhat wild-eyed, and like he hadn’t slept in a while. Bruce squinted at him over his glasses.

“Tony, have you slept since you left last week?” asked Bruce.

“…Maybe. I’ve been busy! Very busy!” he replied defensively. “Now spill the beans, is Cap crazy or not?”

“Short answer: no. The readings are consistent, and they’re consistently far from his baseline. JARVIS and I monitored and controlled for any possible outside influences, and there weren’t any.” Bruce pulled up various graphs and charts on the screens in the lab, and turned to Steve. “The EEG results show some similarities to those from studies about lucid dreaming, but the areas of your brain that are activated during your dreams aren’t consistent with either dreaming or lucid dreaming. They’re not quite consistent with your waking brain either. Something’s definitely going on, but without your friend Bucky to compare to, I can’t say what it is, or whether you’re on the receiving or initiating end. My current hypothesis is that whatever this is, it’s an effect of the Serum you both received.”

Steve frowned thoughtfully. “I’m pretty sure I’m not the one doing this. I didn’t dream while I was in the ice. From what he’s told me, Bucky’s in cryostasis and he _does_ dream. He’s not just piggybacking on my dreams.”

“Don’t suppose your dream friend knows the details of however they’ve got him on ice?” asked Tony.

Steve shook his head. “He just said he’s in cryo, they take him out, and they…do something to his mind. He said they made him forget everything, wiped him. At the beginning, it was like he didn’t remember me, or himself.” Recounting it now, Steve was disturbed anew. Bucky’s panicked response had been enough to keep Steve from asking more questions and then the dream had ended. But Steve wondered: how could you make a person forget? Were they drugging him?

“That’s technology that the Russians have, or had, at least,” said Natasha, her voice carefully devoid of any emotion.

“Are you—”

“I’m sure.” The snap of finality in Natasha’s voice left them all silent for a moment. But Steve had to know. She had said they had done it to her.

“What does ‘wiping’ mean? What kind of technology can do that?”

Natasha turned to him, and Steve only barely managed not to flinch from the total coldness in her face. Her forbidding expression recalled the awful blankness on Bucky’s, but her voice when she answered was casual. 

“Advanced electroconvulsive technology used in conjunction with drugs that aid in brainwashing operatives.”

They waited for Natasha to expand on her answer. She didn’t. A drumbeat of muted panic took up residence in Steve’s chest, same as it had when Steve had first heard about the 107th being captured. He wanted to demand more answers, wanted a HYDRA base to storm, wanted something Captain America could fix.  

He was about to ask Natasha more questions when Tony gamely soldiered on. “Okay, so the extremely improbable is apparently true. What’s our next step? Incepting Steve? Vision quest?”

“Gathering intel,” said Steve firmly, accepting the subject change. Maybe Natasha would tell him more when they were alone. “Tony, you got access to SHIELD’s files during the mess with the Chitauri. Do you still have it?”

Tony frowned at Steve. “I had JARVIS download what he could and leave us a backdoor, but I haven’t looked into it much.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow at that. “Really?”

“I’ve been a little busy! I’ve got other stuff to worry about than SHIELD’s nefarious spy shenanigans! Iron Man stuff! Why aren’t you going straight to Fury, by the way?”

Steve wanted to keep SHIELD out of it mostly out of reflexive paranoia, but Natasha didn’t seem to have any intention of bringing SHIELD in just yet. He looked to her to see why she was still willing to keep this Avengers-only business. 

“Like I said, I want more intel before we go any further.”

“Don’t trust Fury?” asked Bruce.

“I trust Fury,” said Natasha evenly. “I know why the rest of you might not, but I do. And I want something concrete to take to him.”

“And I agree with Natasha. Tony, can you and JARVIS look for anything on HYDRA, Zola, or the Winter Soldier in SHIELD’s files?” asked Steve.

“Yeah, but listen…this is a longshot, you know that, right? We have literally just got a wish and a dream here.”

Steve met Tony’s eyes. “Bucky’s alive somewhere. I can’t leave him. I won’t.” Tony didn’t look especially convinced.

“Tony. Either you’re with us on this, or you’re not. Tell us now, either way. But tell me you wouldn’t do the same for Rhodey. Because Rhodey looked for you for three months in the Afghan desert, when everyone told him there was nothing to find but a body. This is no different.”

Tony reeled back a little and narrowed his eyes at Natasha. “That’s a low fucking blow, Natasha. But you’re not wrong,” acknowledged Tony.

“So you’re with us?”

Tony waved a hand negligently. “Yes, yes, I will join the quest to rescue Cap’s BFF. I’ll let you know when I have something.”

“Thank you, Tony.” 

When he and Natasha got to the elevator, he steeled himself to ask her about what else she knew about the ‘wiping’ procedure. She beat him to the punch, keeping her eyes on the elevator doors as if this was normal elevator small talk.

“I know what you want to ask. And I’m only going to tell you one time: you don’t want to know. It will only compromise you, and it has no bearing on the mission, not yet. If you really have to know, ask Barnes.”

Steve studied her profile, and wondered what was worse: that she thought it was bad enough that it would compromise him, or that she didn’t trust him with a piece of her past. Either way, anger joined the persistent undercurrent of panic at the thought of Bucky imprisoned somewhere unknown.

Steve took her arm and turned her to face him. “Promise me that what you know about it can’t help me find Bucky.”

She met his eyes without flinching. “I promise.”

****

Of course, the “quest to rescue Cap’s BFF” was much easier said than done. Steve and Natasha were kept busy throughout December working on finding out what was going on with AIM. A few covert investigations into AIM’s factories and offices hadn’t yielded much. And then everything went FUBAR around Christmas.

Steve and Natasha’s previously simple intelligence gathering mission became more exciting with the addition of super strong, fire-breathing guards at the AIM facility they had been scoping out. By the time they had fought their way out, and pulled all the other teams on AIM surveillance and intel gathering, it was to the news that Tony Stark’s Malibu mansion had gotten blown up by some guy calling himself the Mandarin, Tony was missing and presumed dead, and SHIELD was staying strangely hands off about it all. 

After a fast debrief about fire-breathing guards, who were enhanced by something called Extremis according to the intel from AIM’s offices, Steve asked Fury if the Avengers needed to assemble to deal with the Mandarin.

“Stark’s gonna have to handle the Mandarin, since he’s the one who decided to pick that fight like the dumbass he is. You’re staying on the team handling this AIM cleanup. We’ve got to contain the fallout from Extremis.”

Steve exchanged a dubious glance with Natasha.

“Stark can handle it,” she said. She sounded a little doubtful though, and the set of her shoulders was tense. 

“We’re pretty sure Colonel Rhodes is in contact with him,” added Hill helpfully.

Steve felt some of his own tension ease, and saw that Natasha looked mollified. He’d met Colonel Rhodes a couple times, and seen him in the War Machine armor. Tony had backup, at least.

It was all over but the cleanup a few days later, and it all even made some sense after Tony got dragged in for a debrief at SHIELD before immediately running off again to “keep my girlfriend from _exploding_ , Jesus Christ, I have more important shit to do, don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

Steve chafed at the delay to the search for Bucky, but he and Natasha hadn’t exactly been doing great from their end either. The whole business with AIM and the Mandarin had barely left them time to eat and sleep, much less start an ill-defined search for the Winter Soldier. What sleep Steve had gotten had been either too restless and interrupted for dreams, or too deep and exhausted for him to remember much of them. Steve remembered seeing Bucky a couple of times, the way he had when the dreams had first started, but it had been in the chaos and surreality of a normal dream.

When he finally returned to his apartment to collapse into a long overdue sleep, Bucky was waiting for him as soon as he began dreaming. The setting this time was definitely Bucky’s choice, a park in some European city Steve didn’t recognize that looked hushed and lovely in the snow. Steve joined Bucky where he was standing in front of a frozen fountain.

“Had a busy week, I take it?” 

“Don’t even get me started. How are you doing?”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Still a popsicle in some HYDRA base somewhere.”

Steve flinched at the reminder. “I’m sorry. All this business with AIM and the Mandarin didn’t leave us much time to look for you.”

“Christ, Steve, you don’t have to apologize. It’s not like you’ve got much to go on.”

“ _Can_ you give me anything else to go on? You said HYDRA had you. Is there anything you can remember? Any people or places?”

“I know it’s HYDRA. Start by looking into Zola. I remember—I remember him being there.”

Steve wanted to believe him, but he knew what Natasha would say. _Could he be confused, was he sure, was he thinking of the HYDRA factory in 1943?_ “Yeah Buck, he was there in the HYDRA factory in ‘43,” Steve ventured.

“No, not just then. He was there—after. After I fell. I know. I’m _sure_ ,” Bucky said vehemently.

“Okay. Okay. We’ll look into it.”

Steve moved closer to Bucky, wanting to ease the tense, taut lines of his back and shoulders. 

“So where are we anyway?”

“Prague. I was sent here on a mission once. The target was in that building there,” said Bucky, gesturing across the expanse of the park to a street with a picturesque row of houses and shops. 

Steve didn’t know what to say. Everything he could think of felt like the kind of pointless platitude that Steve himself had always hated to hear when he was sick or hurting. He couldn’t even bring himself to make any promises to Bucky about it not happening again. They both knew all too well that Steve was in no position to keep them, not when he knew so little. 

“I’m trying to remember what I can, but so much of it is just—it’s just a lot of blood and killing.” He took a shaky breath in, and continued quietly, “Steve, I don’t think I wanna remember all of it.”

The admission made Steve’s heart seize in his chest. Any thoughts he had about gently asking Bucky about the ominous wiping procedure flew out of his head. Bucky had so rarely ever admitted weakness or pain, always putting Steve first. Steve’s years as Captain America still weren’t enough to prepare him for being the strong one.

“I’m sorry. Bucky, you know I’d do anything—”

Bucky visibly steeled himself and interrupted Steve. “No, I know. And if I want it to stop, I have to remember enough to help you. So I might be gone a few nights, try not to lose it.”

Before Steve could summon up a snappy retort to reassure Bucky, the dream faded away along with Bucky himself.

****

Once the fallout from the defeat of AIM and the Mandarin settled, the Avengers (minus Thor, who was still in Asgard) regrouped at the Tower, ostensibly to celebrate Tony still being alive, but actually to bring Clint in on the search for Bucky and to reassess how to continue. Given that pulling Tony out of his workshop while he was working on stabilizing Extremis was a lost cause, Steve brought the meeting to him. They gathered around one of the workbenches that was marginally less covered in Iron Man parts as Tony fiddled with a holographic diagram.

After Steve and Natasha brought Clint and the others up to date, Clint took the news with a slightly disturbing blank equanimity. “Sure. Cap’s dead best friend is speaking to him in his dreams and he’s the Winter Soldier. Okay, I can roll with that.”

“Yeah?” asked Bruce suspiciously.

Clint shrugged. “Why not. I got mind-controlled by an alien god and then fought a bunch of different aliens. I’m thinking this might be less weird.”

Steve made a command decision to not worry too much about Clint’s blasé attitude. Natasha would let him know if he was about to snap. He hoped.

“...Okay. Thanks, Clint. So Bucky told me we should start with Arnim Zola, said he was absolutely sure Zola was there after...after he fell. So I asked around at SHIELD and looked up some files from the archives.”

“I thought we were trying to keep this under the radar. You weren’t worried about attracting attention with that?” asked Natasha.

“I made it seem like I was just curious about some unfinished business from the war. And really, I should have looked into this earlier. We captured Zola just before I brought that plane down, I should have thought to look into what happened to him. Especially given what I found. JARVIS, can you please look up Arnim Zola from the files Tony pulled from SHIELD?”

JARVIS displayed an image on one of the lab’s many screens. It looked like a scan of a SHIELD personnel file showing an old photo of Zola, but his title was classified, as was the date his clearance was issued and when it expired.

“No further files were found, Captain Rogers.”

“I want to know why Arnim Zola, a Nazi who worked for HYDRA, a _war criminal_ , ended up working for SHIELD.”

That got Tony’s attention. He turned to peer at the file displayed on the screen. “JARVIS, keep digging for any files about Zola. Make that the priority when you’re going through SHIELD’s files.”

“Understood, Sir.”

Bruce looked thoughtfully at the file and said, “I think I might know why. Have any of you ever heard of Operation Paperclip?”

Tony sucked in a breath and crossed his arms. “That’d be it.” He turned to the rest of them and explained, “Operation Paperclip was basically part of the start of the Cold War. At first it was just about keeping key Nazi scientists out of the war effort, a kind of cushy house arrest, which I’m guessing is the kind of treatment Zola got. But then with the Cold War getting started, the US recruited a bunch of them, basically so Russia couldn’t get them. Dad talked about it a little, when he was in his cups. He had some doubts, not that it stopped him working with a lot of the Paperclip scientists.”

“There was some effort made to hide the scientists’ identities, but it was generally an open secret,” added Bruce.

“Welcome to the Cold War,” said Clint wryly. 

“Are you thinking SHIELD has something to do with HYDRA and the Winter Soldier?” asked Natasha, her voice and eyes sharp.

“I’m thinking SHIELD brought at least one member of HYDRA into its own ranks, and that that’s worth looking into. At any rate, it’s the only solid lead we have,” said Tony.

Natasha nodded curtly and added, “That and looking into the Winter Soldier, which I’m working on.”  

“Any chance of more intel from Barnes?” asked Clint.

“He’s working on it,” answered Steve.

They handled a few more logistical matters before everyone scattered. Steve headed back to his apartment in Brooklyn, and resolved to wait as patiently as he could for whatever intel Bucky could give him. That wasn’t very patiently though: there were a lot of hours to fill in the day before sleeping. Working at SHIELD filled some of them, and was as close as he got to feeling like he was actually doing something helpful by digging through the archives. But at the end of the day, he still returned to an empty apartment. The silence of it was suffocating, and though the television could alleviate some of it, nothing helped the deeper silence that was Bucky’s absence.

****

Despite Bucky’s admonition not to “lose it,” Steve couldn’t help but worry. The dreams were the only connection to Bucky he had, and without them, all the worst case scenarios paraded through his head. When Bucky reappeared in his dreams a couple of nights later though, Steve realized that radio silence might have been preferable. Because for the first time, Steve was pulled into one of Bucky’s nightmares, rather than Bucky being pulled into one of his.

Steve was having a normal if anxiety-ridden dream of putting on his old USO show for an audience of unsmiling SHIELD agents and Avengers, when the dreamscape shifted abruptly to a scene of Bucky in something that looked like a sadistic dentist’s chair. Everything was tinged with a sickly greenish gray, the room lit by harsh fluorescent lights that couldn’t quite penetrate the darkness pulsing in the corners. Either the lights were flickering or the room itself was, with a speed that was just on the edges of Steve’s perception. Steve felt dread build in him as if he was breathing it in. Bucky himself looked—Steve could barely stand how Bucky looked. Pale and almost gray, with nothing in his eyes but hopeless resignation and fear. 

For a moment, Steve thought the nightmare was his: a memory of finding Bucky in that HYDRA factory melded with his current fears of what was happening to Bucky now. But Steve’s immediate attempt to change his surroundings failed, and when he moved towards Bucky to try to free him, his hands went right through Bucky and the restraints that held him.

“Bucky? Can you hear me? Bucky!”

Bucky didn’t respond, didn’t even seem to notice him, and panic began to overtake his dread. This wasn’t like any of the other dreams or when Steve found Bucky in that HYDRA factory. Then, Bucky had at least seen him, recognized him. Bucky had smiled like he almost always did when he saw Steve, and even in the midst of the terrible surroundings and Steve’s worry for Bucky, it had given Steve the strength to get them both out of there. Now Steve might as well have been a ghost. 

There were faceless figures milling around the grim room, their voices a dull murmur that didn’t resolve into language. The room itself wasn’t well-defined; Steve only had an impression of gray and black industrial blankness. And the people were literally faceless, as if all of their features had been smoothed to nothing. The only things rendered in detail were the chair, its machinery, and Bucky himself. Steve pushed his growing panic aside and made himself commit the chair to memory. Maybe Natasha or Tony would recognize something about the technology.

Two words suddenly sounded out, clear and precise through the murmuring voices: “Wipe him.”

Steve startled from his position beside the chair as it began tipping back, a clamp fastening around Bucky’s head. Bucky’s bare chest started heaving as if he couldn't get enough air, and his eyes squeezed shut. The machinery powered up with a rising electrical hum and crackle, and Bucky started screaming. There was nothing in the scream but sheer, animal pain, and it rooted Steve to the spot. Any last hope that this was Steve’s nightmare dissolved. Nowhere in his worst imaginings could he have thought that this was what Bucky had meant when he said they wiped him. 

He tried desperately to grab hold of the chair, the restraints, Bucky, anything. But his hands just moved through all of it. He tried to talk to Bucky, to promise that it would stop, that he would save him, that this would never happen again, that Steve would come for him. But the hum of the machinery only grew louder and louder, and through it all, Bucky did not stop screaming. 

Steve sank to his knees and bowed his head, reduced to helpless prayers. _Please let this stop. Please let us both wake up. Please God let it stop._ After what could have been an eternity or a few minutes, Bucky’s screams stopped and the sudden absence of sound was as shocking as a gunshot. When Steve looked up at Bucky, he wished he hadn’t. The chair had tipped back up, and Bucky’s eyes were open. There was absolutely nothing in them, as blank as if he were dead.

“Bucky, can you hear me?”

Static crept in along the edges of the room, and Steve felt the nightmare’s grip finally ease into wakefulness. He woke up with tears on his face and his body aching with tension.The clock on his nightstand read 04:18. If it had been any other nightmare, any other dream of Bucky, he would have gotten up to go for a run or read or sketch. Anything to occupy his mind and body. But Steve was powerless in the face of this, could only curl up in his bed like a child who thought if only he could stay under the covers, if only he didn’t get out of bed, the monsters wouldn’t get him.

As he stared into his dark room, Steve wondered distantly if he had the strength to bear this. He had understood, intellectually, what Bucky had told him: that he had been captured, that he had had his memories and mind taken from him somehow, that he was in cryostasis, that he was the Winter Soldier. He had been horrified enough by what Bucky had told him so far. But none of it compared to what he had just seen. The sheer horror of it emptied Steve’s mind of any tactics or plans or contingencies. He was just left with the sound of Bucky’s screams echoing in his head. He knew now what Bucky had meant when he said they had emptied him out, and why Natasha had told him the knowledge would compromise him.

****

Steve made his way through his morning routine automatically. His body dutifully went through the motions of getting ready for work and going to SHIELD HQ, but his mind was still mostly stuck in that room with Bucky. He hoped Bucky wasn’t still in that nightmare. _No,_ _memory,_ he thought. It had been a memory. Steve knew that with the same certainty he knew it was really Bucky in his dreams.

It was thankfully a light day at SHIELD: some training with SHIELD agents and a meeting with Fury, in addition to yet another briefing about handling the remnants of AIM. Steve could lose himself in the work, and if anyone noticed that his thoughts weren’t all on training, they didn’t mention it. 

When he saw Natasha on his way to the SHIELD commissary, she definitely noticed. Her eyes widened a little and she pulled him into the nearest security blind spot.

“What happened? You look terrible.”

“Nothing, it’s nothing.”

“Bullshit, it’s nothing,” she said as she searched his face. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” he responded automatically, and tried and failed to move past her back into the hallway.

Natasha cocked her head and pretended to consider his response. “Yeah, no. Let’s go out for lunch.” 

“I have a meeting with Fury at 1400—”

“We’ll be back by then,” she said as she herded him along towards an elevator.

Steve gave up on escape and followed Natasha as she took a winding route out of Times Square to a busy deli. She maneuvered her way into a table by the kitchen and deftly ordered for both of them. Steve hadn’t realized she knew his favorite order. 

She filled the minutes before their food came with some bland SHIELD gossip, her eyes roving over the deli and its customers, and Steve did his best to respond normally. He wasn't sure how well he succeeded. After a waiter brought their food, Natasha’s eyes returned to Steve’s, keen and focused.

“What happened last night, Steve? Did Barnes give you any more information on who has him?”

Steve looked away from Natasha to stare at the bit of the kitchen he could see through the door’s window. He could see a line cook chopping vegetables with comfortable competence. 

“Yes—no, maybe. I don’t know. It was just—I’m pretty sure I got pulled into one of his nightmares,” said Steve haltingly. He felt a lump in his throat, and took a sip of his water to try to dissolve it.

“Okay. And what did you see?”

Steve kept his eyes on the line cook, who was laughing at something one of his coworkers was saying, his knife still flashing over his cutting board.

“Bucky was—he was shackled to a chair. There was some machinery, around his head. A voice said ‘wipe him’ and it turned on and he—he started screaming. He just kept screaming and I couldn't do anything, I couldn’t stop it—” Steve felt his voice break and his breath come faster. 

“Did you see anyone else there?”

“No. Or, there was, but they had no faces. Like Bucky had never looked at them, or didn’t remember what they looked like.” The line cook had moved away from Steve’s line of sight. Steve kept his eyes fixed on the kitchen anyway.

“What about where you were? Were there any identifying details?”

Steve shook his head. “No, it was all sort of vague and featureless.”

“What about the voice that said ‘wipe him’? Was it male or female?”

Steve wrenched his eyes from the kitchen and looked at Natasha. “Male.”

“Did it have an accent?”

Steve thought hard for a moment. It was difficult to tell with only two words but…”No, no, I don’t think so. The voice sounded American.” 

Steve felt like he was finally fully waking up. There was useful intel to be gleaned, even from this. There was something he could _do_. 

“ _There_ you are. Welcome back, Steve,” said Natasha with a small smile.

“So the voice was American. Or Canadian, I suppose. Do you think that means it isn’t HYDRA?”

“I think it means it wasn’t Zola. But I’m not saying we should stop following that lead. Zola was in the US after he got recruited to SHIELD. Maybe he recruited some people too. Any other details you can think of?”  

“I did my best to look at the chair. It was the only thing that really had any detail in the dream, other than Bucky. I could draw it, maybe that’ll tell us something.”

“Do that. Now finish your food, you’ve got to get back for your meeting with Fury.”

He was about to do just that, but he hesitated. If Natasha had told him this was what the wiping procedure was, what would he have done with the knowledge? Was this what had been done to her?

“Knowing this—it doesn’t compromise me. It was just. Hard to see. I’m sorry.” He wasn’t sure what exactly he was saying sorry for: having reacted the way he had, having pushed her about the wiping procedure before or having gotten a glimpse into her past she hadn’t wanted him to have or that it had happened to her at all. All of it, probably. 

Natasha seemed to understand and said, “I know.”

****

Talking to Natasha about what he had seen had steadied Steve, which was good, because going to a meeting with Fury without his full mental faculties would have been ill-advised at best. Steve trusted Fury, mostly. He just didn’t like giving Fury any reasons to doubt his competence or sanity. The memory of that farcical, fake-40s set up still rankled. He must have looked sane and competent enough, because when Steve got to Fury’s office, Fury barely gave him a second look before gesturing towards a screen displaying an older, vaguely familiar-looking white man.

“Captain Rogers. This is Secretary of Defense Alexander Pierce, an old friend of mine and a member of the World Security Council. He’s video conferencing in for this meeting.”

Pierce nodded in greeting. “It’s an honor to meet you, Captain Rogers. I’d like to personally thank you for your work on the Avengers Initiative and your leadership in the Battle of New York. I had my reservations about the Initiative, but you proved them all wrong.”

“Thank you, sir. Though I didn’t get the impression you thought much of the Avengers when you sent a nuclear bomb towards New York.”

That got him a somewhat baleful glare from Fury, which was rich coming from him. Steve knew Fury had disapproved of that choice as much as anyone. Pierce smiled wryly and inclined his head in acknowledgment of the hit. 

“Well, the Council tends to think more of the big picture. That means making difficult calls sometimes.”

Fury cut in before Steve could start arguing with Pierce about the “big picture” and said, “Captain, given recent events, the Council and I have agreed that we’d like you to be based out of Washington DC and SHIELD’s primary HQ at the Triskelion.”

“Is the Avengers Initiative moving to DC as well?”

“No, but you’ll be working most frequently with the STRIKE team, and they’re based out of the Triskelion. You’ve had a few missions with the STRIKE team already, and I’m pleased with the results. I’d like to make that more of a permanent arrangement, and for you to train alongside them.”

“I and the Council are in agreement with Director Fury. The Avengers Initiative will, we hope, be less necessary in the absence of any extraordinary threats like the Loki and the Chitauri. You’ll be of far more use with the STRIKE team. Now, I’m due for yet another meeting, but thank you again, Captain Rogers. ”

The screen went dark, and Fury turned to Steve.

“So this isn’t a request, so much as it is an order, right?”

“If you’ve got a real reason to want to stay in New York, I’ll go to bat for you, Rogers, but as far as I can tell, you’re wandering around being a sad sack and failing to adjust well.”

Steve felt his hackles rise. “I’m adjusting just fine, sir.”

“Sure you are,” said Fury, narrowing his eye at him. Steve met his stare evenly and didn’t budge. He hoped he looked sane and well-adjusted, though given the night he had had, he was aware that might be unlikely.

Fury sighed and continued, “Listen, I get it. You’re doing as well as can be expected. Frankly, I’m happy we don’t have to have you on suicide watch. But you’re rattling around the old neighborhood in grandpa clothes looking like someone killed your puppy, and I think a change of scenery would be good for you. You’ll still be working with Agents Romanoff and Barton, and working with the STRIKE team plays to your strengths.If you’ve got an objection that isn’t about your goddamned stubbornness and authority issues, lay it on me.”

Steve had to admit, he didn’t have an objection he could give Fury. There was no reason to stay in New York when he didn’t even know where in the world Bucky was. Tony was digging through the SHIELD files already, and Natasha was following what leads she could on the Winter Soldier. Given that what information they had so far pointed towards SHIELD itself, SHIELD’s primary HQ might be a better place to continue the search anyway.

“No, sir. No objections.”

“Good. SHIELD HR will set you up with an apartment. Is two weeks enough time for you?”

“Yes, sir. Don’t exactly have much to move, sir.”

“Thought so. You’re dismissed, Captain Rogers.”

****

Steve dreaded going to sleep that night, and felt like a coward for it. If Bucky had had to undergo such terrible tortures alone, the least Steve could do was to bear witness to them even if he couldn’t do anything to ease Bucky’s pain. He tried not to think too hard about the possibility that it hadn’t been a nightmare or memory. He was well aware that if Bucky had been wiped again, there was nothing he could do other than what he was already doing.

The previous night and the day’s training had apparently taken their toll, because Steve fell into an exhausted sleep quickly enough. When one of his dreams resolved into lucidity, it was to Bucky sitting halfway up the steps leading up to the apartment Steve had shared with his mother before she died. Relief flooded him, and something must have shown in his face because Bucky stood up looking worried. Steve walked towards him, and they met at the foot of the stairs where Steve stopped and reached out a shaking hand to touch Bucky’s face. Bucky stilled at the touch, eyes widening in surprise, and _oh thank God,_ thought Steve. Steve could feel him, and his eyes weren’t empty of recognition, or of everything that made him Bucky. It was enough to make him abandon caution, wrap his arms around Bucky, and just hold on.  

“Hey, didn’t I tell you not to lose it, you punk?” Bucky’s arms tentatively came up around him, and Steve couldn’t help the half-sob, half-laugh that escaped him.

“Don’t tell me I’ve been gone longer than a few nights,” Bucky added uncertainly.

“No, it’s only been a few nights,” muttered Steve into Bucky’s neck. Bucky’s hand rubbed soothing circles on his back while Steve debated whether or not to tell Bucky about last night’s nightmare.

“What’s got you so upset then? Did something happen?”

Steve pulled back from the embrace to study Bucky’s face. Bucky just looked concerned and a little fond, an expression Steve was more than familiar with. 

“I just missed you.”

Bucky peered at him suspiciously. “I’m not buying that. What happened?”

Steve cleared his throat and looked away from Bucky. “Nothing. Did you remember anything that might help?”

“Wow, you are still a terrible liar. Stop avoiding the question, Steve.”

He swallowed and met Bucky’s eyes as evenly as he could. “I think I got pulled into one of your nightmares, Buck. Don’t think you knew I was there,” he said quietly.

Bucky’s face went blank and still, and he turned away from Steve. “Ah Christ. I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have seen that.”

“You’re sorry. _You’re_ sorry? Jesus Christ Bucky, you’re the one who lived it, I’m the one who left you there, and you’re telling me _you’re_ sorry? _I’m_ sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t pull you out of it, I’m sorry I was completely useless. I’m sorry all I could do was watch you _scream_ —”

Bucky turned back to him with eyes wide in alarm.“What did you see?”

“I saw you getting wiped. You didn’t see me. It was like I was a ghost or something. I tried to stop it, but my hands just went right through everything. I saw—I saw the chair, I saw you.” Steve laughed bitterly at himself. “I don’t know what I thought you meant by being wiped, but it wasn’t that. God, Bucky. You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“Think I’ve got plenty to be sorry for,” said Bucky, mouth settling into a grim smile. He studied Steve’s face. “It upset you,” he ventured.

Steve stared at Bucky in disbelief. “Upset” was an understatement for how that memory had made him feel. How it still made him feel.“Of course it upset me! You think I could watch you being tortured and _not_ be upset?”

Bucky looked away again. “Right. Well, I did my best to remember something that could be helpful. I’ve got an idea for how to show you.” His face screwed up in concentration, and Steve’s old apartment building dissolved, slowly replaced by a grim-looking room that looked like some of the HYDRA bases they had raided during the war, only more modern.

“This is the last base I was in, as far as I can remember. Which may not be saying much.”

Steve wasn’t entirely willing to let the previous direction of their conversation go, because there was something deeply, fundamentally wrong with Bucky not understanding that the sight, the _thought_ , of him in that kind of pain sent Steve beyond reason. But Steve forced himself to think of the potential value of the intel instead. The wipes had already happened. There was no HYDRA factory to storm, not yet. All Steve could do now was learn everything he could to make sure nothing like that ever happened to Bucky again. 

He turned his attention to the HYDRA base, which was rendered in far more detail than the previous night’s memory had been. Steve couldn’t see anything that hinted at the base’s location, but he took careful note of all of the technology. It was probably the only thing that would help date the memory.

“Do you remember what language was being spoken?”

Bucky frowned in thought, and a murmur of voices rose up in the dream. 

“… _The asset….report, Soldier….the target is….prep the cryochamber…”_

English, then, and definitely American accents. Steve paced around the room, and stopped in front of something that looked like the Vita-Ray chamber he had been placed in for Project Rebirth.

“What’s this?”

“The cryochamber.”

Steve didn’t remember the Vita-Ray chamber being so small, but then he had been smaller when he had first gotten into it, and hadn’t spent much time in it besides. This was little more than a coffin, thought Steve, feeling sickened and horrified all over again. 

“This is where they keep you?”

“Yeah. Home sweet home.”

Steve couldn’t help but huff out a grim laugh. Bucky’s sense of humor had always been a little dark, and the war had only made it darker. Still, the thought of Bucky stuck in there… _Focus, Rogers. You need all the intel you can get if you want to get Bucky out of there_. 

“Do you…do you know anything about how it works?”

“There’s a gas of some kind that cools everything down, they pump it in and it starts the whole freezing process. Then there’s some kind of fluid or gel or something, I don’t know.”

Steve didn’t like what Bucky was implying. But that first time Bucky had really talked to him in these dreams, he had said he was so cold…

“You’re awake when they put you in there?”

“Yes. It causes no permanent damage,” said Bucky flatly, but he shuddered a little after he said it. 

Steve wrestled with his anger for a moment and said, with as much calm as he could muster, “I am going to get you out of that thing.”

Bucky smiled a little. “Okay. Lookin’ forward to it.”

When the dream gently fell apart and Steve woke, it was to the chill of the hour before dawn. He left the silent emptiness of his apartment for the streets of a slowly waking Brooklyn, and ran to his gym, where it was just him and a few early risers getting in a workout before the workday began. He settled into a rhythm with the punching bag. The gym owner, or maybe some SHIELD employee, had quietly put in new, extra heavy punching bags for Steve. He still broke three of them that morning before he left for SHIELD HQ. 

****

The Avengers had time for one last meeting before Steve went to DC. To outside eyes, they made sure it looked like a goodbye party for Steve. Of course, when they retreated back to the Tower, it wasn’t for a nightcap, it was for a debrief. Steve relayed what new information he had, and gave Tony and Bruce the sketches he had made of the HYDRA base and machinery. Bruce and Tony frowned down at the sketches of the chair and cryochamber, and asked detailed, rapid-fire questions about the machinery.What was its power source? What color was the metal? How did it connect to Bucky? What sound did it make? Did he see how it was operated? What kind of gas was used in the cryochamber? And on and on and on. Steve did his best to answer what questions he could through the memory of Bucky screaming.

Once Bruce and Tony had finally exhausted their questions, they talked science at each other in a corner of the lab while Natasha reported on her efforts at tracking down any intel on the Winter Soldier.

“Unfortunately, while assassins love talking about the Winter Soldier, they mostly love talking about him as the assassin-equivalent of an urban legend. It’s all ‘I hear he was the shooter on the grassy knoll’ this and ‘he can shoot a bird in the eye from a thousand yards away’ that. None of my sources connected him to HYDRA, only to Russian intelligence. I’ve got some more people to try though.”

“Thanks. Have you heard anything, Clint?”

“Same stuff Natasha has. I always thought he was the Dread Pirate Roberts of wetwork.” 

“Dread Pirate Roberts?”

“Wait, you haven’t seen the Princess Bride yet? That’s a goddamned tragedy, it’s only one of the best movies—”

“Focus, Clint! Movie night later.”

“Right. What I mean is, I thought it was a passed on title kind of thing, where the old Winter Soldier retires or gets killed and someone new replaces him. Cryo’s a good explanation for him not aging though.”

Bruce and Tony returned to the rest of the team and gave Steve his sketches back.

“Right, so as far as we can tell, this particular tech can be dated to the last twenty years. Some bits are older, but the materials and construction suggest late 90s to early 00s. Nothing looks exotic enough to trace by supply chain or purchase records, but I’ll have JARVIS dig around,” said Tony.

“From what you and Sergeant Barnes have described, the cryostasis process would probably only work on someone with the Serum, which is likely why the tech hasn’t made it out into the wider world. With anyone else, cellular integrity would be too compromised to leave a living subject, much less a non-brain dead one. And…making some assumptions about how this…wiping technology works, I can offer at least one totally non-scientific, wild ass guess as to how Barnes is dreaming while in stasis.”

“Not _totally_ non-scientific, but we can’t test it, so.”

“Right. Well, assuming the memory modification is essentially a kind of directed brain damage, there’s no reason a Serum-enhanced healing factor wouldn’t work to heal that. Cryostasis and repeated damage would work to slow that healing, but the brain has some remarkable healing mechanisms even in unenhanced humans. It can find ways to compensate for parts of the brain that are damaged beyond repair or even outright missing. It’s conceivable that, through repeated exposure, Sergeant Barnes’ brain and healing factor have adapted to the conditions and are healing the damage in whatever way they can.”

Tony nodded, looking inordinately happy at having a potential scientific explanation and added, “Current research on dreaming suggests it’s basically part of the brain’s maintenance routine. In the absence of any other ways to heal itself, your BFF’s brain may be working with what it’s got by processing and recovering memories in dreams. I got nothing when it comes to this psychic dreamsharing nonsense, but I guess it might be a byproduct of the Serum.”

“That’s a good explanation. Very science-y,” said Clint. Steve nodded in agreement, a little dazed by the matter-of-fact discussion of ‘brain damage’ and ‘repeated exposure.’

Bruce smiled wryly. “Thank you. Going back to what Tony said earlier, I agree that the tech is from sometime in the last twenty or so years. It’s not much, but might help us find where he’s being held.”

“It’s a start. And it’s a narrower time frame than seventy years at any rate. Thanks. What about your progress on digging through SHIELD’s files, Tony?”

Tony sucked in a quick breath. “Well! That’s where things get interesting. Also, now I feel totally vindicated in my distrust of SHIELD!”

“Explain.”

“There is absolutely something hinky going on there. And not, like, normal spy stuff hinky. I found all of that stuff way earlier, and it was about what I expected for an agency like SHIELD. I’ll try to simplify for the non-geniuses among us: it’s like there’s a whole shadow network underlying SHIELD’s. JARVIS and I can’t get access to anything yet, but it’s like dark matter. We can tell it’s there, it’s affecting the data around it, but we can’t get a clear look at it.”

Natasha frowned. “Are you thinking virus or infiltration?”

“I don’t know. But whatever it is, I’m guessing Zola was at the center of it. It’s easy enough to find his personnel file and some of his reports, but there’s a curious lack of information about the projects he was actually working on,” Tony replied.

“Zola may have been an evil Nazi, but he was a genuinely brilliant man. There’s no way SHIELD had him just twiddling his thumbs as a Project Paperclip scientist. I’d have expected to see a lot more work product, or for something to have leaked out into academic circles. But there’s barely anything,” said Bruce.

Tony bounced awkwardly on his feet and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Right. So we’re gonna keep digging, but FYI, I’m gonna be…less available for a bit. We figured out Extremis, and I’m gonna make a go at getting my own personal night light out of my chest.”

Natasha shot a sharp look at Tony. “You’re getting the shrapnel out? I thought that would kill you. Isn’t keeping it from killing you the whole point of the reactor?”

“Hello, genius? That’s what Extremis is gonna help with. Anyway, don’t worry about it, Bruce and Pep have me covered. It’ll be fine, I’ll need something to work on while I’m stuck on bed rest post extremely invasive heart surgery, and this is gonna be all I’ll be working on. So no worries, Cap! Go do your spy, Captain America, inception thing in DC, we’ve got the rest covered.”

The potential interruption and delay to the search for Bucky rankled, but he wasn’t about to ask Tony to not have the extremely dangerous shrapnel taken out of his heart for his and Bucky’s sakes. There was little to be done about how agonizingly slowly the search for Bucky was going when there was so little solid intelligence. 

“Thank you. All of you, thank you for all the work you’ve done so far. Let’s keep following what leads we have, and check in with each other if we have anything. Tony, good luck with the surgery.”

“Yeah, good luck, Stark. Try not to die,” said Clint. 

Natasha pinned Tony with a suspicious, narrow-eyed stare and said, “I’m talking to Pepper about this.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Oh my god, I’m not _dying_ , I swear. This is an entirely reasoned, logical decision about my health. No finalizing my affairs or anything. Green bean, back me up here!” 

Bruce looked up from the file he was perusing to make a face at Tony. “Well, it’s certainly not without risk, but no surgery is.” At Tony’s glare, he relented and said, “But yes, it’s an entirely reasoned, logical decision about his health that has more pros than cons.”

“ _Thank you_. No need to stab me in the neck with anything, Romanoff.”

Natasha hummed noncommittally. “I’m still talking to Pepper.”

“You do that,” said Tony as he shooed them all out of the lab. “Now out out out, I have a lot to do before I’m stuck in a hospital bed.”

In the elevator, Natasha exchanged a speaking glance with Clint. Steve tried not to fidget.

“You doing alright, Cap?” asked Clint.

“I’m fine,” answered Steve firmly.

“It’s okay if you’re frustrated. I know this isn’t going as fast as you’d like.”

“It isn’t. But there’s nothing we can do about that right now. We just have to keep following what leads we have.”

He didn’t know if they expected him to have a tantrum or what, but he could be patient. Especially when he didn’t have any other options.

****

Steve was loathe to admit it, but Fury might have had a point about the change of scenery to DC being a good idea. The disjuncture between Steve’s New York and the New York of the 21st century had only made it more difficult to adjust. It had been both home and not-home, Bucky’s absence all the more painful and glaring given the almost-familiar surroundings. Washington DC was at least somewhere entirely new, with few memories attached to it. It was closer to Peggy’s nursing home too, so he could visit her more often.

The move to DC did make him uncomfortably aware of how isolated he had become though. He may not have felt particularly close to the Avengers, except for Natasha who he worked with the most often, but the occasional shared meals and non-SHIELD related conversations had helped him feel more like he belonged in the 21st century. After a couple of weeks in his new apartment in DC though, he realized he hadn’t really interacted with anyone outside of Peggy, SHIELD, and his pretty next door neighbor. And Bucky, of course, but it seemed like grimly grinding through Bucky’s memories of largely interchangeable HYDRA bases shouldn’t quite count. That probably counted as work. 

It was just that Steve had never been particularly _good_ at making friends. Bucky had been the one to befriend him when they were kids, and Steve had been grateful for it every day. Steve had been the awkward, angry, runty kid on the playground, the one who couldn’t keep up with the games of tag or stickball, and wasn’t charming or funny enough to be likable otherwise. Everyone had liked Bucky though, and that had made Steve more well-liked by association.  

Then came Project Rebirth and the war, and Peggy and the Howling Commandos, when Steve’s friendships had been forged through war and shared purpose. Now that he was seventy years in the future, it occurred to Steve that he didn’t quite know how to make friends when he wasn’t one half of SteveandBucky, or in the war. There were his SHIELD coworkers, but they saw historical hero Captain America more than they saw Steve Rogers. Most people did.

So Steve just held to his status quo: work with SHIELD, dream with Bucky, and go on punishing early morning runs. Sometimes Steve wasn’t the only one running around the Washington Monument as dawn broke. He’d see a handsome black man some days at the tail end of his own run before he was due back at the Triskelion, and wondered absently what brought him out so early in the morning. His bearing suggested he was a soldier; maybe he had his own ghosts keeping him up at night.

One morning their runs coincided, and Steve couldn’t help but let his polite “On your left” turn teasing on the third time he lapped the man. He was rewarded with the man’s exasperated “Oh, come on!” and Steve felt himself grinning. He still wasn’t entirely used to being the guy doing the lapping instead of being lapped. The thrill of not being an asthmatic wreck wheezing far behind a pack of healthy runners was sometimes too much to resist. 

After his run, he joined the guy where he was stretched out under a tree, still breathing hard and recovering from the run.

“Need a medic?”

The man laughed and peered up Steve from his spot on the grass. “I need a new set of lungs. Dude. You just ran like thirteen miles in 30 minutes.”

“Guess I got a late start.”

“Really? You should be ashamed of yourself. You should take another lap,” he said gesturing vaguely and pausing a moment. “Did you just take it? I assume you just took it.”

Steve just grinned in response. “What unit you with?” he asked. 

“58th Pararescue. Now I’m working down at the VA. Sam Wilson.”

“Steve Rogers,” he answered, and offered Sam a hand up.

“I kinda put that together.” Sam paused for a moment, still catching his breath, and studied Steve. “Must have freaked you out, coming home after the whole defrosting thing.”

“Takes some getting used to. It’s good to meet you, Sam.” Steve liked Sam based on their so far brief interaction, but had no particular desire to be psychoanalyzed by a stranger, so he turned to leave.

“It’s your bed, right?” called out Wilson.

Steve turned back towards him. “What’s that?”

“Your bed, it’s too soft. When I was over there, I’d sleep on the ground and use rocks for pillows, like a caveman. Now I’m home, lying in my bed, and it’s like…”

“Lying on a marshmallow. Feel like I’m gonna sink right to the floor. How long?” Steve was driven to gyms and running trails in the early hours of the morning even after nights he didn’t dream of Bucky. Some things were universal for soldiers.

“Two tours. You must miss the good ol’ days, huh?”

Steve had realized fairly quickly that when people asked if he missed the ‘good old days,’ it was a loaded question. Sam looked a little like he was expecting a propaganda newsreel answer about the 40s. “Well, things aren’t so bad. Food’s a lot better, we used to boil everything. No polio is good. Internet, so helpful. I’ve been reading that a lot, trying to catch up.”

Sam paused to think for a moment. “Marvin Gaye, 1972. Trouble Man soundtrack. Everything you missed, jammed into one album.”

“I’ll put it on the list,” said Steve, and added it to his notebook of things to look up. He was making pretty steady progress through it, but there was always something to add. Before he could somehow ruin this tentatively normal, friendly human interaction with someone he didn’t work with, he got a text from Natasha: MISSION ALERT. EXTRACTION IMMINENT, MEET AT THE CURB. :) The use of the smiley face seemed a little out of place, but Steve had yet to master the intricacies of texting etiquette. 

“Alright Sam, duty calls. Thanks for the run. If that’s what you wanna call running.”

Sam took the teasing in stride. “Oh, is that how it is?”

“That’s how it is.” 

“Okay,” said Sam, grinning. “Any time you wanna stop by the VA, make me look awesome in front of the girl at the front desk, just let me know.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” he told Sam. 

Natasha pulled up at the curb in her flashy car and said, “Hey fellas. Either of you know where the Smithsonian is? I’m here to pick up a fossil.”

“That’s hilarious.” Natasha really never got tired of joking about his age, and was entirely undeterred by said jokes being unfunny to everyone but her. 

Sam meanwhile was clearly impressed by both the car and Natasha, because he leaned down to make eye contact with her and asked, “How you doin’?” Sam managed to pack an awful lot of flirtation into three words.

It worked, apparently, because Natasha’s answering smirk was assessing and kind of interested as she answered with a simple, “Hey.”

Steve wasn’t romantically interested in Natasha, but he was a human man, and he had an aesthetic appreciation for a beautiful woman in a beautiful car. Sam was certainly smoother with his flirtation than Steve had ever managed to be.“Can’t run everywhere,” he told Sam.

“No, you can’t, ” replied Sam with a smile, and watched them as Natasha peeled away from the curb with a wholly unnecessary but impressive burst of speed. 

****

The mission Natasha had picked him up for turned out to be a milk run. Steve half suspected it was busy work, and wondered if there were SHIELD higher ups getting concerned about the time Steve was spending in SHIELD archives. No one seemed unduly suspicious of Steve reading up on SHIELD’s early history: he had gone so far as to invoke the archivists’ sad, pitying looks by saying he wanted to learn more about what Peggy had done after the war. He hated himself a little for using Peggy like that, but it wasn’t entirely _untrue_. Peggy had told him some of it herself on her good days. It was just the best way to avoid closer attention. Thinking he was sad and heartbroken kept people from asking too many questions other than, “How are you doing, Cap?” 

That night, he met Bucky in another dream of Coney Island. It was Bucky’s signal that he wasn’t ready to dive back into his Winter Soldier memories. Steve knew it wasn’t easy for him. It showed in the tightness around his eyes and the downturn of his mouth, and though he would never say anything, Steve knew Bucky sometimes needed a respite. So they wandered companionably through their memory of Coney Island together until Bucky felt settled enough to talk and they sat down on a bench in front of the Cyclone.

“Tell me what’s goin’ on in the waking world, Steve. What are you doing? Having adventures? Met any nice dames? Or fellas?”

“What, and step out on you if I did?” joked Steve. Bucky rolled his eyes, and Steve continued more seriously, “Well, I’m going through the SHIELD archives, seeing if I can find out anything helpful about HYDRA. Going on milk run missions for SHIELD, catching up on the 21st century. That kind of thing.”

Bucky stared at him for a moment. “Right. That’s all work, pal. What are you doing for _fun_?”

Steve shifted uncomfortably as he reviewed his memories for anything Bucky would consider fun.

“I watch movies? You won’t believe it Buck, they’ve made fifty Disney movies since the 40s!”

“Uh huh. You watching these movies _with_ anybody?”

“…Sometimes.” That wasn’t a lie, really. Sometimes he watched movies with Clint and Natasha. Sometimes.

“Steve. Have you made any actual new friends? Not people you work with.”

“Um. I work with Natasha, but she’s a friend. A good friend!” Bucky was not impressed, and just raised his eyebrows in response.

“And just this morning, I met a guy on my morning run! His name’s Sam, he works for the VA,” Steve continued gamely.

Bucky sighed and shook his head. “How long has it been since you’ve been out of the ice? A year?”

Steve looked away from Bucky. “Yeah, about.”

“You can’t tell me people don’t wanna be friends with Captain America. It ain’t like when we were kids, people _see_ you now. They gotta.”

Steve smiled at the vehement certainty in Bucky’s voice. Bucky had always been genuinely baffled by Steve’s inability to make more friends. To Bucky, it was self-evident that Steve was a great guy, and it was only everyone else’s failure that they didn’t see it.

“Yeah, they do see me. But Captain America’s the guy from the history books. Not so many people see Steve Rogers, that skinny kid from Brooklyn.”

Bucky’s lips pressed together in an unhappy line. “So you, what, spend most of your free time alone? Steve…”

Steve swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat. He tried not to think of how lonely he was, most of the time. It was simply something to be endured, the way his asthma had been, the way his grief was. It had been Bucky who had persisted past his isolating grief for his mother. The Avengers had tried, were trying, but…

“It’s just hard, Bucky. Without you. Without everyone we knew.”

“You’re alive, Steve. You gotta act like it. This is the world you have to live in. With or without me.” 

“I know.” God, did he know. They breathed together for a minute, and Steve hoarded the feeling of Bucky’s presence against the next day’s loneliness. He nudged Bucky gently to break the suddenly solemn mood. 

“Hey, wanna ride the Cyclone? I promise I won’t throw up this time.”

****

With Bucky’s words fresh in his mind, Steve decided to take Sam up on his offer to go to one of his VA meetings. He got there at the tail end of a meeting Sam was leading and lingered in the doorway so as not to interrupt. A woman was talking about how she had been pulled over under suspicion of driving while drunk for swerving to avoid a plastic bag. She had thought it was an IED. It was a new version of an old story: the men who had come back from the Great War and cowered under tables every time thunder boomed, the men with him at the front who couldn’t entirely relax even on leave and reached for guns they didn’t have at every sudden noise.

“Some stuff you leave there. Other stuff you bring back. It’s our job to figure out how to carry it. Is it gonna be in a big suitcase, or in a little manpurse? It’s up to you,” said Sam.

The meeting slowly dispersed and Steve stepped into the room to wait for Sam. The other soldiers acknowledged him with nods and quiet “sirs,” as they left the room. Steve joined Sam at a table where he was tidying some brochures.

“Look who it is: the running man,” said Sam.

“I caught the end of the meeting. Pretty intense.” He busied himself with helping Sam fold up some chairs.

“Yeah. Lot of us come back with the same problems, y’know? Guilt, regret, isolation.” Steve nodded and Sam looked at him keenly. 

“You lose someone?” asked Steve.

“Yeah, my wingman. Riley. Flying a night mission on a standard rescue op. Completely normal mission until an RPG blew him out of the sky.” Sam paused and focused on the chairs for a moment. Steve’s throat tightened out of sympathy, remembering the sight of Bucky falling out of that train in the Alps. 

“Couldn’t do anything about it. It was like I was just up there to watch. It was hard to find a reason to stay over there after that.” _Just up there to watch_. That sounded about right, thought Steve with bitter recognition.

“I’m sorry. I know what that’s like, a little. Losing someone, anyway.” Steve met Sam’s matter of fact and sympathetic eyes and felt some of his loneliness ease. Sam knew what it was like, at least. “You’re happy back in the world?” 

“Food’s better,” Sam joked, an echo of their earlier conversation. “But yeah. I’m doing good work, I’ve got a good life,” he continued more seriously. He put the last chair away and studied Steve for a moment. “You thinking of getting out?”

“No,” answered Steve reflexively. “…I don’t know. Don’t know what I’d do with myself if I did,” he admitted.

“Ultimate fighting?” suggested Sam with a grin. Steve smiled back, but knew it didn’t reach his eyes. Sam noticed and added, “Seriously, you could do whatever you wanted to do. What makes you happy?”

_Bucky_ , came the immediate answer. It had been Bucky for so long, Steve didn’t know what happiness looked like without him. And, he realized guiltily, he had been…happy wasn’t quite the right word, but he had felt useful during the war. He had felt _seen_ , by Peggy and by the Commandos. And that had felt good.Here, now, Steve wasn’t sure what would make him happy, other than having Bucky back. That was probably bad, he realized.

“I don’t know,” he finally answered Sam.

Sam nodded thoughtfully. “That’s okay. You’ve got time to figure it out now, right?”

Steve certainly hoped so. 

****

Tony’s surgery went well, which was good, but it did mean that Steve and Natasha now got a lot of texts and emails as Tony tore through SHIELD’s files while on bed rest. Sometimes the emails trailed off into gibberish when Tony presumably face planted onto his tablet’s keyboard. He tired easily, Ms. Potts informed them apologetically. 

Natasha’s Russian sources yielded vague confirmations that the Winter Soldier had been in Russian hands for at least some part of the Cold War. No one knew what had happened to him after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Steve was grateful for the intelligence, but he could see that it was costing Natasha something other than favors and bribes. She kept her silence though, and Steve did his best to trust that it was _her_ silence to keep. 

It was just difficult not to grab at every piece of information and shake until something more than maybes and misdirections fell out. The pace of the search for Bucky was agonizingly slow, and it didn’t help that Bucky was more and more absent from Steve’s dreams. Bucky had instead thrown himself into scouring his fractured memories of his time as the Winter Soldier with a grim fervor. Some of it bled through to Steve’s dreams in hallucinatory, sickening flashes that he didn’t entirely understand: blood on snow, the sound of an electric saw, harsh bright lights and shadowy figures. 

Worse still, sometimes Steve felt Bucky’s nightmares beginning to drag him into their inexorable undertow. One night, in a dream of Washington DC’s blooming cherry blossom trees, the drifting petals turned slowly into snow and Steve felt himself falling with a vertiginous shift. Or an innocuous dream of looking for a book in his neighborhood library got colder and colder, the space crowding in smaller and smaller.The nightmares never progressed too far before Bucky presumably wrenched control back and shoved Steve forcefully into wakefulness. The disquiet and desperation they caused lingered though. Steve’s runs began to start earlier and last longer. Even Sam’s easy smiles and jokes were strained by worry during their morning runs.

When Bucky finally returned to Steve’s dreams, he arrived with his eyes alight with triumph and anger, and dragged Steve’s dream of the reflecting pool at the Washington Monument through a bewildering shift to a generic HYDRA base. There was a man standing there, facing away from them and towards the chair with the wiping machinery, frozen as if he was just an image and not a person. 

“Him. _I remember him_. He’s HYDRA, one of the ones who gave me missions. He tried to make it seem like I was doing good work, like I was doing what was _right_.” Bucky’s voice shook with disgust and anger.

When Steve walked around the man to see his face, the jolt of recognition was almost enough to throw him out of the dream. It was Alexander Pierce.

“Maybe if you sketch him when you wake up, you can get a lead—”

“I know who he is.”

“What?”

“That’s Secretary Pierce. Alexander Pierce, the Secretary of Defense. He’s—I met him, he’s on the World Security Council. Fury called him an old friend. He’s HYDRA? You’re sure?”

“I’m as sure as I can be.” The image of Pierce remained static, but the room filled with the sound of his voice saying _Hail HYDRA_. 

“There were others too.” Bucky continued, and more freeze-frame figures popped into view, these ones soldiers arrayed around the chair and Secretary Pierce. When Steve stepped closer to them, their facial features were muddled and indistinct, but their uniforms and the insignia on them were clear: it was the SHIELD logo.

“That’s the SHIELD insignia,” Steve said numbly.

The small, scattered puzzle pieces of information they had were beginning to come together into a disturbing whole. Zola involved in SHIELD from its inception, hidden files in SHIELD’s systems, and now Bucky identifying Alexander Pierce as HYDRA…Steve wondered despairingly if SHIELD had been HYDRA all along.

“What do you mean, Steve?”

“I think I know how HYDRA survived after the War. I need to talk to my team about this. I’m sorry, Bucky, if you remember anything else—”

“Yeah, no, go. I ain’t going anywhere, hopefully.”

****

When Steve woke, it was still the small hours of the night. He texted Clint and Natasha, the only other Avengers in DC, with a terse “I need to talk to you,” and used the burner phone Natasha had given him to do it. An excess of caution seemed like a good idea now. A couple minutes later, Natasha texted back with coordinates that Google informed him led to an all-night diner. Steve left his apartment by the window, and ran to the diner. Less chance of being noticed or followed that way. 

The diner was empty but for Clint and Natasha, and a few scattered bums and second shift workers just off work. Natasha was as well put together as she always was in casual dark jeans and a leather jacket, but Clint had clearly just rolled out of bed and he looked it. He was hunched over a cup of coffee like he wanted desperately to fall into its warm embrace. Steve hoped he was armed, at least.He slid into the booth beside Clint and across from Natasha.

“Hope you didn’t call us out here because of a nightmare, Steve,” said Natasha, and Clint grunted in agreement.

He shook his head. “No, not a nightmare. Bucky showed me one of the people who gave him missions. It was Alexander Pierce.”

Clint’s posture abruptly straightened, and Natasha’s eyes widened.

“Are you saying Alexander Pierce, Secretary of Defense, World Security Council member Alexander Pierce, is HYDRA?” asked Natasha.

Steve fought against his impatience. “Yes. Bucky was sure. And he showed me men in SHIELD uniforms at one of the HYDRA bases he was held in. With what we’ve found about Zola being part of SHIELD, and the files Tony is trying to access…I think you can understand why I’m concerned.” 

Concerned was an understatement. Steve wanted to find Pierce and demand information,or storm SHIELD as if it was a HYDRA base. This was the first real piece of intelligence they could conceivably act on, rather than another lead to chase. 

“I figured there was maybe some HYDRA sleeper cell using SHIELD resources, not some conspiracy that goes all the way to the fucking top. What the _fuck_ ,” said Clint.

Natasha glared at Clint, and judging by the way he jumped, kicked him under the table. “Let’s not jump to conclusions just yet. The SHIELD uniforms could have been disguises.”

“And Pierce? Does he have an evil twin we don't know about?” asked Steve.

Natasha shook her head. “We need to go to Fury.”

Clint protested. “Nat, we still haven’t got anything solid—” Steve cut him off.

“Fury trusts Pierce.”

“Are you suggesting Fury is HYDRA too?” asked Natasha in a low and dangerous voice.

“I don’t know. SHIELD had HYDRA-derived tech during the battle with the Chitauri, and Fury knew about that.”

“I trust Nick,” said Natasha firmly.

“So do I,” added Clint.

The waitress came by to refill their coffee, and they sat in tense silence for a moment after she left. Steve didn’t want to believe Fury could be HYDRA, but then, he hadn’t thought Zola could be welcomed into the very heart of the early SHIELD, all prior crimes forgiven and forgotten. If that rot had been festering in SHIELD for sixty years…

“You didn’t contact Stark or Banner. Think they’re HYDRA too?” challenged Natasha.

“No! No, of course not.” 

“You can’t suspect everybody, Steve. Do you trust that I’m not HYDRA?”

Steve answered Natasha automatically. “Yes.” 

“Then trust me on this. Nick Fury isn’t HYDRA.” Natasha held Steve’s gaze for a long moment, and Steve searched her eyes for any hint of doubt. There was none, only urgent certitude. 

Clint broke the fraught silence and asked, “What can we take to Fury though? I don’t know about you, but I don’t wanna get put on psych hold when we go raving to Fury about Cap dreaming about his dead best friend and Pierce being HYDRA. That is some full-on, bum ranting on the street crazy right there. I’m still on goddamn probation after the Loki clusterfuck.”

“Why even go to Fury first? We can go the direct route, confront Pierce himself.” Steve was spoiling for a fight, but he’d settle for meeting Pierce face-to-face to find out where Bucky was. He could think about the rest after that.

“And what, politely ask him if he’s a Nazi and where he’s keeping Barnes?” Natasha scoffed and shook her head, then continued, “We need to confirm Barnes’ intel. We dig into Pierce, find something tying him to HYDRA or the Winter Soldier. You don’t get involved in a decades-long evil Nazi conspiracy without leaving _some_ evidence, somewhere. I can get access to him to plant some bugs, and Clint can run some surveillance. Stark and Banner can go through SHIELD files on him.”

“And me?” asked Steve. 

“You’re a little too compromised on this, Steve.”

“Too _compromised_?” After coming to rely on Natasha’s support throughout the search for Bucky, her shutting him out now was a gut punch.

“Yes, you’re compromised. Listen, I get it, Barnes is your priority. That’s fine. But if you’re right, this is bigger than him. This is all of SHIELD. This is HYDRA potentially in charge of a hell of a lot more than a legendary assassin. And if I’m working for a bunch of Nazis, I need to know.” Natasha’s face was tight with anger.

“That’s the kinda thing I have to know too. We joined SHIELD to try to do right. If we’ve just been HYDRA puppets all along…”

If they were all of them being used by HYDRA like Bucky was…that thought sat low in Steve’s stomach like a lead weight. This was about more than just him and Bucky.

“You’re right. This is bigger than just Bucky. Follow up on Pierce, let Stark and Banner know, and I’ll see what else I can get from Bucky.”

The tension slowly drained from the booth, and left something more weary behind. Steve supposed it had been naive to hope for the same clarity of purpose and action that he had had during the war. The war hadn’t been easy, but the battle lines had been drawn clearly enough. Steve suspected there would be no such clarity now.

Clint rubbed his face and broke the silence with forced cheer. “Okay! Good meeting, team. Let’s celebrate with pie.”

****

Going to the Triskelion later the next day, or rather later that day, felt a little like walking into a war zone without cover. Like Clint, Steve had assumed that if HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD, it was as a small sleeper cell. Knowing that Pierce was involved suggested a far more sinister conspiracy, and that had him off kilter. Not being alone with the knowledge helped. Natasha had apparently gotten the new intel to Tony and Bruce, because Steve got a series of text messages from Tony that just consisted of outraged punctuation and emoticons. 

The day passed in a rush of meetings and training, and all of it was just counting time until he could go to sleep and dream. Bucky had apparently just been counting time too, because it felt like as soon as Steve fell asleep, Bucky was there, eyes wide and body tense with urgency. 

“I remember the location of one of HYDRA’s bases.” 

The sudden surge of hope felt like a physical jolt. “Is it where you are now?”

“No, definitely not. HYDRA’s generally had some safe houses and shit scattered around, places to route assets and materiel through. But here—” Bucky narrowed his eyes, and the dreamscape began shifting and flashing through locations before it settled on a nondescript warehouse in what looked like an industrial area. There were loading bays that were the right size for shipping containers or trucks.

Steve examined the surroundings carefully, but found no identifying information. “This…isn’t that helpful, Buck. This could be anywhere.”

Bucky huffed and rolled his eyes. “Pay attention. I’ll try this slower for the old man here.”

This time, the locations shifted more slowly, and it became apparent that Bucky was recreating a route he had taken, as he had taken it. Portions of each location were missing, with whole buildings dropping off into the blackness of night, and text on signs that didn't resolve into words, but certain details were vivid, and Steve committed them to memory: a few street names, a series of cheerful murals that looked sallow and strange under sodium lights, cars that looked neither too old nor too new. The narrow homes and businesses built from brick all suggested a city in the eastern US, and the cars didn’t look much older than anything he saw nowadays to Steve’s admittedly unpracticed eye. When the pace of the shifts slowed down, the dreamscape approached the warehouse more slowly, as if at walking pace. A sign for some place called Thumpers flared bright in Steve’s vision for a moment before the street kept moving past them and settled on the warehouse.

“I could hear trains, real close by.” An industrial area by railway tracks then, thought Steve.

“Can you go back a bit?”

Bucky obliged, and Steve focused on Thumpers. There was another sign on the building’s brick face, lit weakly and garishly by the neon lights in the window below it. Bucky’s vision must have been as good or better than Steve’s, because even in the weak light he could see the sign: “WATCH ALL THE RAVENS GAMES HERE.” It was undoubtedly a sports team name, though Steve didn’t recognize it. It could be enough to pinpoint a location.

“Think you can find it?”

“That a dare?”

Bucky lifted his chin and smirked, the cocky look Steve recognized from so many alleyway fights and bar room brawls when Bucky had his back. It was a look that had dared Steve into a hell of a lot of foolhardiness over the years.

“You bet it is.”

Steve smiled back at Bucky. “Then I’ll find it. You know I never back down from a dare.”

Steve woke then, and immediately reached for his StarkPad. One search for “ravens sports” yielded likely results for the Baltimore Ravens, a football team. Safe guess that the warehouse was in Baltimore then, or at least Maryland. Steve tapped out another search for “thumpers maryland.” The first results were for a bar in Curtis Bay. Google obligingly provided an address and a map, and because sometimes living in the future was actually really great, there was Street View too. Relief flooded him when the Street View matched the images from the dream. It was daylight and some of the signs were different, but it was undoubtedly the same bar, and the same stretch of warehouses that Bucky had indicated. Finally, this was a lead he could act on.

****

Steve’s immediate impulse was to strap on his shield and go to Baltimore himself. As satisfying as it would be, he knew it was a terrible idea. There were too many variables: was the base still active? Was it guarded or booby trapped? Was it even still there? What should be done with any guards that were there? Making a move on this base would require some careful planning. It was the first chance they had for real, solid evidence they could take to Fury.

Still, moving quickly was a priority. He, Clint, and Natasha were all stationed at the Triskelion for now, but there was no guarantee that would last. With Tony still out of the action for at least another few weeks, Thor still on Asgard, and Bruce as a weapon of last resort, that only left Steve, Clint, and Natasha available for any moves against HYDRA. Any longterm mission could take any one of them out of the search for Bucky. Thankfully, they were all still on milk runs. Clint was still on probation post-Loki, limited to in-country, short missions. Steve and Natasha were still on AIM cleanup and damage control. It didn’t leave them with all that much in the way of free time, but it was better than nothing.

Steve texted everybody with his burner phone to give them the heads up on having a location, and asked Tony to have JARVIS look into the building. By the time Steve, Clint and Natasha met that night, Steve had a tentative plan of attack for the HYDRA base. 

This time, Natasha sent coordinates to meet at a late-night cafe near George Washington University, and added _DON’T DRESS LIKE A GRANDPA, STEVE. :P_ That made Steve frown down at his phone, vaguely offended, but he did his best to comply. When he arrived at the trendy cafe, it was full of students huddled at tables and pecking away at their laptops despite the late hour. It took him a moment to spot Natasha after he bought his coffee; she looked like any other student with a laptop, her distinctive red hair covered with a soft-looking knit cap. Clint was slumped beside her, nursing a positively vat-sized cup of coffee and he waved lazily at Steve to come join them. 

When Steve sat down, Natasha angled the laptop screen towards him to show Tony, who was propped up in bed and wearing sunglasses and a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. He looked wan and about ten years older than when Steve had seen him last, but he seemed well enough.

Steve raised an eyebrow at his seemingly uncharacteristic clothes and asked, “How are you doing, Tony?”

“Fine! Extremely concerned about the _evil Nazis in our midst_ , but fine! Also, Bruce says hi, but this isn’t really in his wheelhouse, so you’re stuck with me.”

“What’s with the get up?”

Tony lowered his sunglasses to squint at him. “We’re secretly conspiring against evil Nazis who have infiltrated the highest levels of government. Discretion seems wise.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and said, “Give me some credit. There’s a film over the screen, no one who’s over two feet away can see anything.”

“Have you got anything on the location I sent you?” asked Steve.

“Ownership of that warehouse is a bust: it’s just shell corporation after shell corporation, none of it leading to anything real. But! It has operated as a legitimate warehouse off and on over the past few years. There are shipping records, bills of lading and the like, and some of the shipments…well, they’re from dummy corporations set up by SHIELD. I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that they were not, in fact, shipments for marble and tile.”

The records flashed on the laptop screen at a gesture from Tony, who continued, “I’ve got the blueprints for it and some detailed satellite imagery for you too. No regular guard as far as I can tell, but there’s probably some sort of security system judging by the power expenditure.”

Natasha examined the records, her face blank. “Yeah. Those are companies SHIELD uses for cover. Barnes say anything about what’s in the warehouse?”

“He said he thinks it’s more of a safe house or warehouse for storing stuff in than an active base.”

“You might as well use the warehouse as…a warehouse, I guess. Even evil Nazi conspiracies need to deal with logistics,” said Tony.

“Alright. We go in through the roof when we’re sure there’s no HYDRA guard around, disable the security system, and see what we can find. Natasha and I will go in, Clint, you’re on lookout. This is strictly a fact-finding mission, I don’t want HYDRA to know we were there. Hopefully we’ll find something we can take to Fury, or a better lead on where Bucky is.”

“Baltimore’s not exactly far. I can go over tonight to do some preliminary recon and be back in DC in the morning,” offered Clint.

“Do that. I want to move fast on this, before any of us are sent out on any other missions. Any ideas on how to disable security without attracting too much attention?”

“Best way would be to cut the power to the whole block, make it seem like a problem with the grid. There might be a backup generator though.”

“Let me know what you find, Clint. Tomorrow and the day after enough time for everyone to prep?” Clint and Natasha nodded. “Okay. Tony, let us know if anything else interesting shows up in the satellite imagery. Let’s regroup tomorrow night, and move in the night after that if nothing else comes up.”

****

After that, things moved fast. Steve examined the blueprints and satellite photos from Tony, and came up with a plan for infiltrating the warehouse. The HYDRA warehouse itself was likely locked down pretty tight, but the neighboring warehouses were not, and they shared ventilation systems. Roof access through the warehouse next door and then a crawl through the vents would net them access if the blueprints were accurate. 

Clint’s recon didn’t turn up much other than confirmation that there were no guards, and that the neighboring warehouses would be easy enough to break into. There was no way to know if the lack of security was due to the place being abandoned, or if it was simply that it wasn’t high priority enough to warrant any. If it really was just a warehouse for HYDRA, there was every likelihood that it was as unsecured as it looked. A small part of Steve wondered if it was a trap, but he trusted Bucky. And short of HYDRA watching their every move, it was unlikely anyone else knew anything.

The night of the op, they all made their way to Curtis Bay separately. Natasha would arrive later, after cutting power to the neighborhood. Steve felt kind of bad about that, but she assured him it would be back up within an hour. Steve met Clint on the roof of the warehouse directly adjacent to their target. They made quick work of breaking in, and Clint moved to take position as lookout on the roof of a row house across the street. 

As Steve waited for Natasha, he listened tensely for any sign of discovery, but he couldn’t hear anything out of place in the ordinary sounds of a late night neighborhood. Steve’s phone vibrated with a message from Natasha: _ETA 5 MINS_. With two minutes to spare, the electricity in the neighborhood flickered out, and about a minute later, Natasha joined him on the roof. 

After a moment for their eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness, they made their way into the warehouse. Natasha flicked a flashlight on to leaven the otherwise complete darkness of the interior of the warehouse. A few quick sweeps with the beam of light, and Steve located the ventilation shaft that would give access to the HYDRA warehouse, right where the blueprints said they would be. Steve gave Natasha a boost on his shoulders so she could unscrew the cover of the shaft. When she had, she handed it down to him and shimmied into the ventilation shaft. Steve followed after her, and they belly crawled through the shaft for a few minutes before they reached the vent cover where the HYDRA warehouse was supposed to be.

Natasha crawled ahead to let Steve force the shaft cover open. It gave easily under Steve’s strength, and he dropped into the HYDRA warehouse, alert for any sign of an alarm or a guard. But it was as lightless and silent as the other warehouse. When Steve flicked his own flashlight on, the light revealed a warehouse that looked much like any other. There were a few desks and filing cabinets, rows of shelving holding boxes and hardshell cases, a couple of SUVs down by the loading dock. The only thing that distinguished this warehouse from any other was the armory rack Steve found behind a bit of flimsy siding further into the warehouse.

“Clear,” he called out softly, and returned to the vent and Natasha.

Natasha landed silently beside him and made her own examination of the warehouse.

“Would be nice if we found something helpfully branded with HYDRA’s logo.”

“That’d be too easy. I’ll start checking the boxes, you take the filing cabinets.”

The cases were SHIELD-branded, and when Steve opened them, he wasn’t too surprised to find the same thing he had on the helicarrier before the battle with Loki and the Chitauri: the Phase 2 weapons using the Tesseract’s technology. Steve took photos of the weapons and cases. The other boxes were full of assorted gear and clothing: SHIELD uniforms, uniforms for the state police, EMT uniforms. Steve continued going through the boxes, snapping photos as he went. 

“Steve. Come here.”

Steve jogged towards where Natasha was looking through the file cabinets.

“They have hard copies of SHIELD files. And of KGB files.” Natasha’s voice was carefully even. She handed Steve one of the files. He skimmed it quickly; it was one of Zola’s project files, research on Tesseract-powered weapons. When he looked up, Natasha was staring over the file cabinet, hands tight on the open drawer. 

“Natasha. Hey, you okay?”

She closed her eyes briefly, then she nodded and deliberately released her tight hold on the drawer, and continued looking through the files.

“I took photos of some key files. This, plus the connection to SHIELD dummy companies should be more than enough to convince Fury.”

“Is there anything on the Winter Soldier?”

Natasha tilted her head towards the desk in response. 

“Looks like he was transferred from the Russians at some point. Also, though it wasn't so much in doubt any more, you’re not crazy. The Winter Soldier really is Bucky Barnes.”

Steve turned to the desk, and opened the file Natasha had tossed on it. There was a photo of Bucky in it, one that made Steve’s heart stutter with a moment of panic. Bucky looked dead, skin pallid and his face hollowed out—but no, he was behind glass of some sort, and there was a light rime of frost. It was just the cryochamber. Steve flipped past the photo, but much of the file was in Russian. Natasha would have to translate it later. 

There was a bill of lading in English at the end of the file though. The euphemistic item description turned Steve’s stomach: “CRYO. UNIT AND CONTENTS.” They meant Bucky. Everything Bucky was, everything he had been to Steve and all his humanity, brutally reduced to “CONTENTS.” _Later_ , thought Steve. _You can be angry later._ There was a disc clipped to the file as well. 

“We need to take this file,” he said.

“Thought you said you didn’t want HYDRA to know we were here. Taking something could tip them off.” 

“There’s a disc attached, and we have no way to copy it here. It could tell us something about where Bucky is.”

“Told you you were compromised,” said Natasha with a mirthless twist of her lips. Steve was about to argue for the value of the disc, apart from his feelings about Bucky, when Natasha continued, “Take the disc, leave the file. I took photos already, and a disc is the kind of thing they might assume just got lost.”

Steve pocketed the disc, and turned his attention to the desks. They were devoid of any personal clutter, or the usual office detritus of scraps of paper and pens and pencils, but they otherwise looked like utterly normal desks. There was one lone computer hooked up to a scanner on one desk, and a printer and various office supplies on the other. Without the power on, they couldn’t pull anything from the computer, but Steve took photos anyway. 

“Talk about the banality of evil. Were they…digitizing the files?” asked Steve, a little incredulous. The set up looked not unlike what he had seen in his trips to SHIELD’s archives, where there was always someone scanning a seemingly endless number of paper files.

Natasha closed the last drawer of the file cabinet. “Looks like. It makes sense, they’re vulnerable in hard copy. Any fire could take them out. Even evil covert organizations need backups. We should go, the power’s going to go back on in about fifteen minutes.”

Steve texted Clint for a status update, and Clint confirmed that the coast remained clear. So they returned to the vent they had entered the warehouse from, and Steve pulled up the vent cover behind them, fastening it back in place with some adhesive putty. It wouldn't hold up under close inspection, but it would have to do. By the time they returned to the roof of the adjacent warehouse, the power was back on, and the neighborhood remained quiet. Steve sent an all clear text to Clint, and another to Tony. Steve tried to focus on the mission’s success instead of the angry racing of his heart ( _cryo unit and contents, cryo unit and contents_ ).They finally had enough intel to take to Fury. The mission was a success.

****

Scheduling a meeting with Fury that wasn’t on SHIELD property or obviously associated with any of the Avengers was easier said than done. With clear evidence that HYDRA was deep in SHIELD, Natasha’s paranoia went past the realm of “reasonable caution” into the outer reaches of “assume the worst and behave as if it has already happened.” Steve couldn’t entirely blame her, but it made maneuvering Fury into a truly private meeting decidedly difficult. Natasha and Clint had thoroughly shot down Steve’s more straightforward suggestion that he just ask Fury for a private meeting, away from any SHIELD property, intimating that he wanted to discuss something personal with him. 

“Are you saying you’re going to try _seducing_ Fury?” Clint had asked in horror.

“What? _No_! I was going to try to look a little, y’know, distraught, like I wanted to discuss my mental health or something.”

Natasha had given him a pitying glance and a patronizing pat on the hand and said, “That’s a terrible idea, Steve. You are an awful spy. I’ll handle it.” 

So Natasha did handle it, through whatever byzantine and thoroughly untraceable methods satisfied her paranoia, and the meeting was set for that upcoming Sunday. That left them a few days time to assemble their intel into something coherent, and for Tony to access the encrypted contents of the disc they had found.

Unfortunately, it also left enough time for Clint to finally be taken off probation and assigned to a new long-term undercover mission. Clint dragged Steve and Natasha into a supply closet to give them the news, which was probably going to start all sorts of unfortunate rumors.

“So, should I make like I’m, uh, not mentally stable yet? I can probably look just traumatized enough to get a few more weeks of desk duty and milk runs.”

Steve shook his head. “No. No, there’s no sense risking you getting held by SHIELD medical or something. And it might be for the best if one of us other than Thor is out of the line of fire when we make a move on HYDRA.”

“Steve’s right. You’re the backup plan, Barton. Keep an eye on our usual channels, I’ll let you know if we need you.”

Clint acquiesced unhappily, and shipped off for his mission. 

****

With the prep for the raid on the HYDRA base, Steve hadn’t been able to sleep long enough or deeply enough to catch Bucky in a dream. It was only the night after Clint left for his mission that Steve finally had the chance to see Bucky again. But Bucky wasn’t waiting when Steve slipped into a lucid dream. Steve tried not to read too much into it, and focused instead on crafting a meticulous recreation of the Brooklyn Bridge. He sketched it in his mind line by line, on a larger scale than his notebooks could ever hold, but still in the same graphite gray. There was a comfort in crafting the bridge’s soaring towers and the precise angles of its cables.

It was after he had added color to the bridge and its surroundings and was busily adjusting the quality of light to get the exact right angle of a late summer day when Bucky appeared. Steve was glad of the effort when he saw how the light gilded Bucky and turned the blue of his eyes summer sky-warm. _This_ was Steve’s Bucky. This was the Bucky that HYDRA had tried and failed to erase. Bucky’s body might be frozen in that cryochamber looking more dead than alive, but at least they had this.

“Well this is romantic,” said Bucky dryly, as he sidled up to Steve’s left where Steve was surveying the expanse of the bridge.

Steve dared to slide his hand into Bucky’s and marveled for a moment at how blessedly real and warm it felt. “Yeah? What can I say, I’m angling for a kiss at the end of the night.”

Bucky grinned and shook his head, but he gave Steve’s hand a quick squeeze and didn’t pull away. “Take me on a date first.”

“You’re so high maintenance,” Steve teased.

“So, did you find that warehouse?”

“Yeah, we did. Found some files, and enough intel to take to Fury. We’re getting there, Buck. We’re gonna find you.” 

Bucky looked away and frowned out at the East River. “Just be careful, Steve. Please.”

Steve brought Bucky’s hand to his lips. “I will. I promise.”

****

With two days to spare before their meeting with Fury, Natasha directed Steve to another late night cafe where they could go over the contents of the disc, with Tony conferencing in. This cafe was considerably more cozy than the last one, with multiple booths and nooks filled with couples angled intimately towards each other. Natasha waved to him from a booth in the corner, and when he got to the booth, greeted him with a sweet kiss on the corner of his mouth.

“Hi, sweetheart,” she said, a decidedly wicked glint in her eye.

Steve knew he was blushing, but he played along gamely. “Hey…honey.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and pulled him onto her side of the booth where they could both face the laptop screen. A few clicks from Natasha brought Tony up on the screen. 

“So! I no longer have any doubts whatsoever about Pierce being an evil traitorous Nazi!”

“What was on the disc?”

“God bless the mutual distrust and suspicion of the Cold War, because when the Russians decided to sell off the Winter Soldier after the Soviet Union collapsed, they were paranoid enough to want to tape the exchange. Not sure why, maybe they wanted to hold the threat of mutually assured destruction via blackmail over HYDRA’s head. The quality’s not great, looks like it’s shitty surveillance footage from the late 80s, but guess who’s there as the representative of the American branch of HYDRA?”

“Pierce.”

“Yup. The voice print matches perfectly.”

“And that’s all that’s on the disc?”

Tony hesitated, and his eyes darted away from Steve. “They defrosted Barnes so they could check the goods, so to speak.”

“I want to see it.”

“Cap…it’s not gonna do anything but cause you grief.”

“You think I haven’t seen worse? If this is what we’re taking to Fury, then I need to see it.”

“Show us the footage, Stark.”

Tony grimaced and said, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The video came up on the screen, the footage grainy and in black and white. There were a couple of men in lab coats, a dozen soldiers, and a few men in suits situated in what looked like a warehouse much like the one Steve and Natasha had found the disc in. Steve didn’t see Bucky anywhere. 

A voice from offscreen spoke in Russian, and the men in suits all shook hands and engaged in a series of bland greetings. Steve could only just identify Pierce as one of the suited men, and only because he knew who he was looking for. As evidence went, it was far from a smoking gun.

“We are prepared to provide proof that the Winter Soldier functions, per your request,” said one of the Russians, judging by his accent.

“HYDRA appreciates your stewardship of the Winter Soldier program over the past couple of decades. I’m sure you understand that it’s important we know if the asset is still fully functional before we complete the transfer of funds.” The figure speaking only bore a passing resemblance to Pierce through the grainy quality and distance of the video footage, but the voice was unmistakably his. 

“Of course.” One of the men gestured to another man in a lab coat, and they exchanged a few inaudible words before the man in the lab coat hurried off screen along with three of the soldiers. 

“Removal from cryostasis takes some time, I’m sure you understand.”

Tony’s voice cut in, startling in its incongruity, “It’s just a few minutes of awkward waiting, let me fast forward—”

The video skipped forward, and then resumed in normal speed when the man in the lab coat returned with the soldiers, who were warily surrounding another man. It was Bucky. His face wasn’t very distinguishable on the video, but his left arm was metal, and Steve just knew. It was Bucky—or rather, it was the Winter Soldier. Steve knew that if he could see his eyes on the video, they would be blank, with nothing of the Bucky Steve knew in them. 

“As you can see, the asset is fully functional. Soldier, this is to be your new commanding officer.”

“What is my mission?” It both was and wasn’t Bucky’s voice. Rough with disuse ( _or screaming_ , Steve’s mind treacherously supplied, remembering that nightmare), his voice was leeched of any emotion.

Before the Russian could say anything, Pierce said, “Kill the three soldiers surrounding you.”

A flurry of brutally efficient violence ensued, and though the view of much of it was blocked by the sudden panicked motion of most of the people in the warehouse, it ended within a minute with the three soldiers apparently dead on the ground, and most everyone else cowering or behind cover. The Winter Soldier remained standing, eerily still now after the swift fight, as did Pierce. 

“Was that really fucking necessary?” spat the Russian official from his cover behind a desk.

“Yes. _Now_ I’m satisfied the asset is fully functional. Put him back in cryo. The remaining funds will be transferred when the asset arrives at our facility. Hail HYDRA.” A staggered chorus of hail HYDRAs answered him.

Tony stopped the video, and his face returned to the laptop screen. “It’s just some scrambling around and clean up after that.”

“They just—-used him like a gun and sold him off?” It was nothing Steve hadn’t known or guessed. To see it though…

Tony frowned. “I told you you wouldn’t want to see it, Cap.”

“The quality of the footage is less than ideal. But that’s definitely Pierce’s voice, and it’s more than enough to convince Fury along with everything else. This is a good thing, Steve,” said Natasha.

“I know. Thank you, Tony. We’ll go to Fury, see what our next steps will be from there.”

“I’m getting pretty close to tracking down whatever’s lurking in SHIELD’s systems. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve got it.”

When Tony signed off, Steve put his head in his hands and summoned the memory of Bucky as he had seen him last. _Bucky_ , not the Winter Soldier or the asset. Bucky had been limned in the light of Steve’s own dream, his hand warm in Steve’s, his eyes bright and affectionate. That Bucky wasn’t a weapon. That Bucky was still alive. He felt Natasha’s hand gently rest on his shoulder.

“You need to be prepared for the possibility that that’s who you’ll find, when we follow this through all the way to the end.”

Steve lifted his head and turned to meet Natasha’s eyes, grave but not unkind. 

“I know. But even if it is, Bucky will still be in there, somewhere.” Steve was sure of it.

****

Steve had half expected the location for the meeting with Fury to be yet another diner or cafe, but this time their anti-HYDRA conspiracy met in a still under construction office building with non-existent site security, and most importantly, no electronic surveillance or ties to SHIELD. The building was finished but for the interior, which in the midday spring sunshine was full of eerie shadows cast by construction materials stored haphazardly in the hallways. Fury was waiting for them in what looked like the construction crew’s favored lunch spot, an unfinished conference room littered with empty bottles and cans, and home to a makeshift table and a few stools and chairs.

“You have got to be kidding me. Agent Romanoff, I have a secretary. You could have scheduled a goddamn meeting like any one of my other agents!”

Steve was gratified to see a little flicker of surprise cross Fury’s face when he spotted Steve coming in a few steps behind Natasha. Fury recovered quickly and said, “Same goes to you, Rogers. What the hell is this about that you needed to pull all this cloak and dagger bullshit for?”

“What do you know about the Winter Soldier?” asked Steve.

“Do _not_ tellme you dragged my ass out here to talk about the assassin equivalent of the boogeyman. Agent Romanoff, I know you know better.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow in response and said, “Answer the question, Nick.”

“Code name for a legendary assassin, credited with some impressive kills over the last fifty years. He’s pretty much a ghost story. The kills are real enough, but there’s no way one man is responsible for them all. SHIELD’s official position is that it’s a codename passed on to a series of assassins associated with Russian intelligence. I happen to agree with that official position. Don’t tell me you think you’ve seen him.”

Steve and Natasha studied Fury, intent on catching any hint of a lie. Of course, Fury was probably more than capable of lying to both of their faces without either of them knowing. Steve didn’t think he was, and Natasha must have been satisfied enough too, because she pulled a StarkPad out of her pack, pulled up the Winter Soldier file, and handed it to Fury. Fury made a quick study of the file, face growing grimmer by the minute. 

“Did you know? Did you, did anyone, have any idea that Bucky Barnes wasn’t dead?” asked Steve. Some of the anger that he was trying to hold in check bubbled to the surface. If Fury said yes, if there was any indication that Fury had known, then Steve was walking out of this meeting and leaving SHIELD without looking back.

Fury didn’t flinch from Steve’s anger and met his eyes squarely. “No. Rogers, I can honestly tell you that no one thought it was possible that Barnes was still alive, much less that he’s the goddamn Winter Soldier. Where the hell did you get this file? Why not bring this to me at SHIELD?”

“We have some concerns that SHIELD is compromised,” said Natasha.

Fury raised his eyebrows. “Compromised? What, you think Loki’s still got his hooks in SHIELD? That’s not possible.”

“It’s not Loki we’re worried about. Arnim Zola worked for SHIELD,” Steve said.

Fury sighed and rubbed at his eye. “I heard you were spending time in the archives, should’ve guessed you’d dig that up. You got to sleep through the Cold War. The rest of us didn’t. The United States and SHIELD were forced to make some strange bedfellows thanks to the Cold War. Zola was just one of them, and probably not even the worst. I get that that feels like a betrayal to you, Cap, but at the time, Zola was a valuable asset. Now what the hell does this have to do with the Winter Soldier? And again, where did you get this file?”

This would be the tricky part, Steve knew. Even with evidence to back him up, Steve was leery of telling Fury about why he had started looking for Bucky in the first place. There was just no way to make “Bucky shows up in my dreams and tells me things,” sound especially sane. Natasha had even suggested leaving the dreams out of their meeting with Fury entirely. They could elide over them easily enough, after all: tell Fury Steve had just wanted to follow up on Zola and had asked Tony to look into it with his access to SHIELD files. But Steve wanted to do this right, and didn’t want the potential headache a lie of omission could cause later on. He had managed to convince Natasha of the same, but Natasha had won when it came to convincing Steve to leave the dream revelation for the end of their conversation with Fury. 

“Zola experimented on Bucky with a version of the Serum, during the war. No one noticed any obvious changes in Bucky then, but the Serum must have helped him survive. Zola would have known that, or at least suspected it,” said Steve.

Natasha continued, “And Zola ended up working for SHIELD. It’s just that he also never stopped working for HYDRA, and he must have recruited for new members. We found the Winter Soldier file in a filing cabinet of SHIELD and KGB files going back decades in a HYDRA base in Baltimore.”

Fury frowned and continued swiping through files on the Starkpad. 

“I’ll buy that SHIELD had—or has—a leak, and that Zola was in with the Russians. That explains Barnes and the Winter Soldier. Where does HYDRA come in? Rogers, you and the Commandos, and the SSR after you, cut off most of those heads. If there was anything left after the War, it was about as disorganized and toothless as the rest of the Nazi command.”

“We found video footage of the Winter Soldier’s transfer from the Russians to HYDRA. When you see it, I’m sure you’ll understand why we felt discretion was necessary. Keep going to the end,” said Natasha.

Fury swiped through more files until he reached the last one. The video played, and Steve could tell the moment when Fury recognized Pierce in the footage. He stood stock still until the video ended, closed his eye briefly, then moved to one of the chairs and sat heavily down in it. Steve was startled to see that in that moment, Fury looked _old_. 

“Who else knows?” 

“Just the Avengers. Stark’s found some other things in SHIELD’s network and files that suggest some sort of infiltration as well. He’s running it down now.”

“And I’m guessing your priority is the Winter Soldier.”

“My priority is _Bucky_.”

“Far as I can tell, there’s not a Bucky Barnes left in the Winter Soldier.” Fury’s voice was almost gentle.

_Now or never_ , thought Steve, and said, “I know there is. You wanted to know where HYDRA came in, how we knew they were involved. Bucky told me.”

“You _found_ him?”

“No, not yet. This is gonna sound crazy. Bucky told me in a dream. He’s been in my dreams, pretty much since I got out of the ice.”

Fury just stared at Steve, disbelief writ large on his features, before he transferred his stare to Natasha. 

“We’re well aware of how this sounds. But Steve knew some things it wasn’t possible for him to have known, and it was enough for me to suggest we have Stark and Banner look into it. They determined that _something_ was definitely happening.”

“Bucky’s the one who showed me the location of the HYDRA base where we found the files. If we weren’t sure the dreams were real before then, we definitely were after that.” Steve shifted awkwardly under the force of Fury’s glare, but lifted his chin to meet it. “I’m not crazy and I’m not lying. Bucky’s in cryostasis, but he’s entering my dreams somehow.”

“We’re guessing it’s an effect of the Serum,” Natasha offered, almost apologetically.

Fury rubbed at his face and swore steadily under his breath for a bit. “Okay, fine. Rogers is sharing dreams or what the fuck ever with Bucky Barnes, who’s the goddamn the Winter Soldier. And _Alexander Pierce_ who I— _fuck_. Alexander Pierce, Secretary of Defense, is a motherfucking Nazi. Christ.”

“We don’t know how deep this goes, but if Pierce has been HYDRA since at least the fall of the Soviet Union….I think we need to assume the worst,” said Natasha.

“And Zola was part of SHIELD from the very beginning. There’s no telling how much of SHIELD is HYDRA,” Steve added.

“Right. Let me do some digging. You all keep following your leads, and keep me up to date. I’ll let you know if I find anything. I know you know this, but I don’t want this to go beyond the Avengers at this point. We need to know how big a problem we’re dealing with.”

“Understood,” answered Natasha.

“And Rogers…” Fury paused, for once at a loss. “Be careful. I don’t even know what to do with this Barnes being in your dreams business, but you can’t disregard the possibility that it’s part of a trap.”

Steve was ready to argue with Fury on that, but Natasha cut in smoothly before he could get started. She raised a cool eyebrow at Fury.

“It seems unlikely. What would the end game be? Let’s face it, if HYDRA wanted to take Steve out, they’d just send the Winter Soldier to do it without messing around with any elaborate dream-based psyops. And if they wanted to use Barnes as a hostage for leverage on Steve, there are more direct ways to do it then having Barnes lurk in Steve’s dreams for months. If it was Loki we were dealing with, I’d say it was possible.”

“But it’s not HYDRA’s style,” concluded Fury. “Still, you’re compromised when it comes to the Winter Soldier, Rogers. I don’t want you taking any stupid risks. Don’t go storming any bases until we know just how many heads this HYDRA has.”

“Of course, sir.”

****

The fact that they had made tangible progress didn’t make the waiting to confront HYDRA or find Bucky any easier. Steve treated Bucky to a series of anxiety dreams over the next few nights, everything from his body returning to its pre-Serum state to showing up to church naked to going on a mission and finding he’d forgotten his shield. After the fifth one in a row (walking into a firefight with no shield and no weapons this time), Bucky blinked in, shook his head in fond disgust, and forcibly relocated the dream to the Stark Expo they had gone to the night before Bucky shipped out. 

The first time around, they had both been too on edge to really take in the Expo. The wonders of the Expo hadn’t been enough to drown out Steve’s worry for Bucky and frustration at being unable to enlist. Seeing it now though, Steve regretted that a little. The Expo was laid out before them, dark and glittering and full of promise. 

Bucky threw an arm around Steve and steered him through the memory towards the Expo’s stage. “You’re making yourself sick with worry, aren’t you?”

“No!” Steve denied, and then added, “I can’t really get sick anymore anyway.”

“Well your dreams are kinda giving you away here, buddy. Not that seeing you naked in church wasn’t hilarious and all, but there’s no point in you worrying so much.”

“I just need something to _do_.” 

Bucky let go of Steve to give him a pointed look. “You’re doing plenty. A hell of a lot more than I am, at any rate.”

“Hey, no, you’re doing what you can. You’re doing more than anyone would even think was possible. You’re frozen in a tube right now, and you’re still helping me.” Bucky rolled his eyes, but didn’t argue and kept leading Steve through the ill-defined crowd. They stopped in front of the stage, much closer than they had managed in real life. Steve absently wondered if Howard or Tony had ever managed to build a functioning flying car.

Bucky sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I just want to be _awake_. I want to be awake, and know my own name.”

“That’s all? Think we can do a little better than that,” joked Steve weakly. It was a depressingly low bar to clear, and they both knew it. Bucky was about to answer when the dream filled with a low buzzing noise.

“What the hell is that?”

“Think it’s my phone…”

Steve slid back into his waking body, his awareness shifting from the bright lights and nearness of Bucky to his bed’s warm sheets. His burner phone was vibrating. Steve fumbled and grabbed it from his nightstand, blinking against the harsh light of its display in the darkness of his bedroom. There was a message from Tony, and another one from Natasha.

The message from Tony looked a little like small cartoon hieroglyphs—emojis, Steve thought they were called—and Steve blearily supposed they made for a halfway decent makeshift code given how impenetrable they were without context. The downside, of course, was that even with context, they were pretty impenetrable, especially at—Steve peered at the clock—2 AM. Steve’s first thought was that the message meant Tony was inviting him to a party. Steve squinted a little and amended that to a party...with snakes? That couldn’t be right. He checked Natasha’s message next: _TRANSLATION: WE KNOW WHERE THE INFILTRATION INTO SHIELD FILES ORIGINATED FROM >:D_   

A little thumbs up picture followed from Tony, along with a set of coordinates. Steve remembered Fury’s admonition not to go storming any HYDRA bases, but he checked where the coordinates led anyway: Camp Lehigh in New Jersey. The connection to the SSR and Steve’s own origins was disquieting, and strangely personal. Steve uneasily wondered if the location had any deeper meaning.

A few minutes later, another message from Natasha came, with another set of coordinates. This time, the secret meeting was in a parking garage. It seemed their meeting spots were trending steadily down market, Steve thought wryly. Soon enough they’d be meeting under a highway overpass. Steve got there in forty minutes, and took five more to check the garage’s perimeter before he joined Fury and Natasha on the roof.

“Here I am, not storming any HYDRA bases yet.”

Fury snorted. “Thank you for that. I _am_ gonna need you to storm this base, though.”

“Is that really a good idea? We’ve been under the radar so far, this will attract attention. It might start a war we’re not ready to fight yet,” said Natasha.

“We’ve gotta start somewhere. And Stark’s intel shows this isn’t a manned base: no cars in or out, no heat signatures from people, no indications of communications in or out. There’s something important there, and I wanna know what it is and take it out if necessary. Stark needs us to get him physical access so he and JARVIS can do their thing with what they find. Then we can assess whether we should blow the place to kingdom come or not. Either way, it’ll be a fast strike before HYDRA even knows we’re coming. We’ll see what snakes slither out of the grass after this.”

Weeks worth of frustrated anxiety finally eased at the prospect of making a real move against HYDRA. 

“How are we gonna blow the place? Seems like requisitioning a bunch of C-4 from the SHIELD armory might raise some alarms,” said Natasha.

Fury raised an eyebrow at Natasha. “Surely you can steal some C-4 out from under SHIELD’s nose, Agent Romanoff.”

Steve remembered the HYDRA warehouse they had raided and said, “We don’t need to. That HYDRA warehouse had a lot of weapons and explosives stocked. We can steal the C-4 from HYDRA.”

“Good idea. I can head over to Curtis Bay tomorrow night and get what we need from the warehouse.”

“Let’s plan on moving on the base the day after tomorrow then,” said Steve.

“And I should have something on what’s going on with SHIELD by then. Good luck Captain Rogers, Agent Romanoff.” Fury nodded at them, and stalked away with a swish of his coat.

****

Getting to New Jersey from Washington DC without attracting the notice of anyone at SHIELD required a little finesse. Steve slipped out of his apartment via the window shortly after full dark set in, and met Natasha in yet another parking lot. She had a full duffel bag slung over her shoulder, presumably full of weapons and C-4.

She gestured to the cars surrounding them and said, “Pick a car, Steve, any car.”

“We’re not taking yours?”

“I love my car, but it’s kind of conspicuous. And I’d rather not take the risk of us being tracked or noticed through it. So, we’re stealing one.”

“Borrowing. We’re borrowing a car.”

“Sure, if you say so.”

Steve looked around the lot and his eyes fell on an older model pickup truck parked in a dark corner away from the pools of illumination thrown out by the street lights. He strode towards it, and made quick work of breaking in and hot-wiring it. 

Natasha tossed her duffle into the cab and slid into the passenger seat with a delighted smirk and asked, “And where did Captain America learn to steal a car?”

“Nazi Germany,” Steve replied, pleased that he could still surprise her.

He drove the truck out of the city, Natasha alert to any possibility of being tailed. She only relaxed when they were well out of the city and into the suburbs, where the traffic dwindled as the hour grew later. Steve decided to take the opportunity to talk to Natasha, really talk. She usually deflected all his attempts to talk to her, keeping conversation focused on empty banter, the mission, or other people. He considered her a friend, but when it came down to it, Steve wasn’t sure how much of her, the real her, he really knew at all. Still, when Steve had come to her about Bucky and his dreams, she had listened and she had helped. 

“Thank you, again, for sticking with me through this. You didn’t have to. I know I sounded insane, and you had no reason to believe me. It’s above and beyond helping out a coworker.” Steve took his eyes off the road for a moment to look at Natasha. “You’ve been a good friend.”

Natasha’s eyes flickered briefly towards him, the expression in them a little surprised but otherwise still unreadable, before she returned her gaze to the window. “This isn’t usually the right business for making friends.”

“Guess I’m just lucky, then. Seriously. Thank you.”

Natasha was silent for the next mile of the drive, and then said, “You trusted me.”

She said it matter-of-factly, simply, but the line of her jaw was tight and her eyes were sincere. It made Steve wonder just how few people did trust Natasha, under all the masks and lies her work required. Steve knew it was probably a short list.

“Yeah. I do.” That earned him a small, but genuine smile, one that turned her green eyes as warm as sunlight through leaves. A few more miles passed in comfortable silence.

“Wake me when we get there,” she said, and settled back for a nap, feet on the dashboard.

“Feet off the dash! We’re borrowing, remember?” Natasha rolled her eyes, but complied, and quickly dropped off into a catnap. 

The drive was uneventful, and within a few hours, they neared Camp Lehigh. Steve woke Natasha, and parked the truck a mile away from the base, under cover of some trees. They jogged in, Natasha with the duffle on her back and Steve with the shield on his. Steve strained to hear any potential guards, HYDRA or otherwise, but the night was silent save for the distant sound of highway traffic and the hum and chatter of wildlife. 

“Stark said this is where the infiltration came from,” said Natasha. 

“So did I. This camp is where I was trained,” added Steve, and Natasha nodded.

They poked around carefully for a few minutes, while Natasha peered at her phone and frowned. “No signals or heat signatures that could indicate an active base that I can see.”

Steve looked around the dark base, and felt briefly, disorientingly close to his pre-serum self of seventy years ago. Camp Lehigh hadn’t changed that much. 

“Has it changed much? From when you trained here?” asked Natasha, echoing his thoughts.

“A little…” Standing here now, even in the darkness, the memories of boot camp were still strong. He shoved them aside and continued to examine the surroundings closely.

“Maybe it’s a dead end. The signal could have just been routed through here to throw us off.”

Steve stared at the barracks and the bunker beside them. There was something off about them and Steve wracked his memory trying to pinpoint what it was. Natasha noticed his attention and asked, “What is it?” 

“Army regulations forbid storing munitions within 500 yards of the barracks. This building’s in the wrong place.”

Natasha followed him to the bunker’s heavy locked door, where Steve broke the padlock with a hard blow from his shield. They made their way into the bunker and turned on the lights. A faded SHIELD insignia on the wall greeted them, the bunker otherwise empty of anything but old furniture.

“This was SHIELD,” noted Natasha.

“Maybe where it started.”

They continued to explore the bunker and its offices, heading through a squeaky door to another room full of empty shelves and a series of photo portraits of Peggy, Colonel Phillips, and Howard. The place had the dusty smell of somewhere long abandoned, but Steve’s attention was caught by the whistle of blowing air by some of the shelves. He ran his hands over the shelves and felt air coming through what he would have dismissed as a gap between the shelving units. A few hard tugs at the shelf, and it groaned and rolled away to reveal what looked like an elevator, out of place in a bunker that was only one story tall.

He gestured towards it and asked Natasha, “If you’re already working in a secret office, why do you need to hide the elevator?”

There was a keypad beside the elevator, one that looked suspiciously modern compared to everything else in the bunker. Natasha pulled out her phone and scanned the keypad, yielding a combination. The elevator responded, and they took it down to a dimly lit basement that looked full of computers and old equipment. Steve paced out the room while Natasha examined the computer set up.

“Hmm. Old school computers, but there’s a USB slot here in the router.” She pulled out what looked like a thumb drive from her pocket and waggled it at Steve. “Let’s hope Stark’s as good as he thinks he is.”

“Wait, before we do anything else, we should set up the explosives. Who knows what we’re turning on or if we’ll have time to blow the place after we do.”

They set up the explosives in strategic locations throughout the basement, and even wedged some onto the computers themselves. The timing for detonation would be tight: the basement location would make detonating within close enough range of the radio transmitter in Natasha’s phone difficult, and they had to get themselves clear of the explosion as well. It could probably be done, but they might end up a bit singed, thought Steve.

He said as much to Natasha, who just shrugged and replied, “I’ve had worse.”

With the explosives set up, they both moved towards the main computer with its bank of monitors. Natasha inserted the thumb drive into the USB slot, and immediately the basement was full of the humming and whirring of machinery coming to life. More lights flickered on and so did the computer’s monitors, one of them asking, INITIATE SYSTEM?

Natasha typed in YES, and dropped her voice to say, “Shall we play a game?” She turned to Steve with a smirk and said, “It’s from a movie—”

“I know. I saw it.” An offhand reference from Bruce had landed the movie _War Games_ on Steve’s list, and Steve had been interested enough to watch it. Their attention was drawn back to the computer screen, where an eerie green face with glasses had appeared. With growing disquiet, Steve thought he recognized the face’s glasses.

The face said, “Rogers, Steven. Born 1918. Romanov, Natalia Alianovna. Born 1984.”

“It’s a recording,” ventured Natasha.

“I am not a recording, fraulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am…” One of the screens showed an old photo of Zola.

“It’s Zola. But he’s been dead for years.”

“Look around you, Captain Rogers! I have never been more alive!” The machines whirred as if in affirmation, and the computerized image of Zola’s face spread to every monitor. “In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving. On 200,000 feet of databanks. You are standing in my brain!”

“How did you get here?” asked Steve.

“Invited!”

“Operation Paperclip.”

“They thought I could help the cause. I also helped my own.”

“HYDRA died with the Red Skull,” said Steve. He knew now that wasn’t true, but he needed to keep Zola talking so Stark could pull as much as possible from the computers.

“Cut off one head, two more shall take its place.” Zola’s computer face doubled across all of the monitors.

The low-banked flame of Steve’s anger at HYDRA and what they had taken from him and Bucky roared into a conflagration. “Prove it.”

“Accessing archive,” said Zola, and images streamed across the computer screens. “HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize was that if you tried to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded, and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew, a beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For 70 years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crises, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed.” Images flashed across the screens: newspaper articles, video footage, and photos of violence and chaos taking place over decades across the entire world. Steve had known the HYDRA infiltration was bad when they had found out Pierce was involved. There had still been the possibility of a small conspiracy within SHIELD though. This was an order of magnitude worse than even that.

Natasha looked truly disturbed now and said, “That’s impossible. SHIELD would have stopped you.”

“Accidents will happen. HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's New World Order will arise. We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your life, a zero sum!” Now images of articles about Steve’s supposed death were on display, and it was the last straw. They had seen enough. 

Steve ran for the doors which had begun to close, grabbing Natasha along the way. He threw his shield, wedging the doors open, and they both dived in, but the elevator didn’t rise. Zola must have taken control of the bunker’s systems. There was a service hatch at the top though, and Steve retrieved his shield from the doors and threw it at the hatch with just enough force to open it, catching the shield on the rebound. He gave Natasha a boost up, then jumped up after her. The elevator shaft thankfully wasn’t too long, and they climbed back up to the doors on the ground floor quickly enough. Natasha set the detonation timer to start as soon as Steve pried open the closed doors. They ran full tilt for the exit, and barely cleared the bunker when the explosion started. Steve pulled Natasha behind the shelter of his shield just as the blast hit, the force enough to knock them back with a wave of heat and sound. They stayed tucked behind the shield until the debris stopped falling.

“You okay?” he asked Natasha.

“Yeah. Thanks. We need to get moving, we don’t want to get caught by any first responders, HYDRA or otherwise.”

They jogged back to the truck in tense silence. Steve checked in with Tony and Fury via text to let them know the base was destroyed, and Tony replied with a series of increasingly profane texts that finally gave way to helpful information: _jarvis and i were working overtime to make sure no info went out that would compromise you, but something did still get out. whole huge bunch of code that took most of the bandwidth available out of the facility, think it was some sort of targeting algorithm. Sent a little present to piggyback on it, I’ll let you know what I find._

When they reached the truck, Steve relayed Tony’s report to Natasha. She nodded tightly, and they sat in silence a moment longer, wrestling with what they had just learned. 

Steve didn’t have much invested in SHIELD for its own sake. Their entrance into his life wasn’t the kind that inspired much trust or affection. But Peggy had helped build SHIELD, and Steve knew deep down she hadn’t known about this, or about what had been done to Bucky. And Zola’s final parting shot had hit home. Steve thought he had died, that _Bucky_ had died, to take down HYDRA, and to find that it had been for nothing, that it had contributed to a “zero sum,” as Zola had called it…that ugly truth settled in Steve’s body like barbed wire wrapping around his bones. Steve didn’t doubt that SHIELD was home to plenty of committed, non-evil agents and technicians and scientists. But Zola had made clear that SHIELD was also rotten to the core, that there could be no clean separation of that rot from what SHIELD was supposed to be.

But if the knowledge was difficult for him, it had to be much worse for Natasha, who had committed much of her adult life to SHIELD. Steve broke the silence to ask, “Hey. What’s wrong?”

Natasha turned to face him, and for the first time, Steve thought she looked frightened. “When I joined SHIELD, I thought I was going straight. Looks like I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA. I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but I guess I can’t tell the difference any more.” She smiled, but it was a small, bitter thing.

“You trusted me, though. I came to you spouting crazy talk about my dead best friend still being alive and HYDRA, and you trusted me. That’s gotta mean something.”

That won him a brief, real smile free of bitterness, but her face settled back into its taut, serious lines, and she said, “I owe you for that.” Steve shook his head, but she continued, “No, I do. You trusted me with all of this and if you hadn’t, I’d still be working for what amounts to HYDRA.”

He met her serious searching gaze steadily. “You’ve never given me any reason not to.”

Natasha’s face, open and vulnerable, was free of any of the masks or fictions she used as armor and weaponry both. If Natasha thought his trust was a debt demanding repayment, then her trust in return was more than payment enough.

She shook her head, smiled and said, “You’re kind of chipper for someone who just learned he died for nothing.”

He didn’t tell her that his anger at his and Bucky’s stolen 70 years would do them no good right now, and instead replied, “Well, I guess I just like to know who I’m fighting.” He put the key in the truck’s ignition, and began the long drive back towards DC. 

****

By the time they got back to DC, the sun was just above the horizon and the city’s usual bustle was just starting. If it had been a normal day, Steve would have been at the Washington Monument by now, lapping Sam around the reflecting pool and sharing easy conversation about things with no relation to SHIELD or HYDRA. Instead, he was returning a stolen/borrowed pick up truck to its previous parking spot and making plans for a meeting of his secret conspiracy against HYDRA/SHIELD.

It was a tense couple of days until they could all meet again to discuss their next steps and any new information Fury had. Steve and Natasha were alert to the possibility of having been made, but Tony’s countermeasures must have been successful because there was no indication that HYDRA even knew about the destruction of Zola’s computer self, much less that Steve and Natasha were responsible for it. HYDRA remained as hidden as ever. At night, Steve only just managed to update Bucky on recent events in a brief dream that quickly deteriorated into chaos under the weight of their mutual worry and restlessness.

Steve didn’t know who chose the next meeting spot, but when he showed up, he suspected it was Tony. Apparently even telecommuting into their secret conspiracy didn’t keep Tony from being obnoxious about the location of the meet. Steve arrived at the coordinates to find a building identified only by the fleur de lis flags hanging from the window. A stream of garishly costumed people were going in and out, laughter and music emanating from the door as it opened and closed. 

A text from Natasha directed him to go upstairs to the second floor. He entered the building behind a group of people dressed in what looked like implausibly skimpy superhero get ups, and was immediately swallowed by the raucous and cheerful crowd inside. It was a bar or club of some sort: lit in lurid dark reds and purples, its decor was vaguely reminiscent of New Orleans.

He squeezed past the crowds and made his way upstairs, where Natasha slipped beside him, twined her arm through his, and led him to a small, private room. It was lit in the same lurid shades, but the cacophony of the first floor was somewhat muted, and it was only him, Natasha and Fury in the room. Steve joined Natasha on a long, low couch, and sat primly on the edge to avoid the ungainly sprawl the couch seemed to demand. Natasha set her phone on the end table between the couch and Fury’s seat in a stately armchair.

“Welcome to Little Miss Whiskey’s Golden Dollar! Fury wanted to set this meet up in some boring secret spy location, but I figured you all need a goddamn drink after confirming that SHIELD is basically HYDRA,” came Tony’s voice from Natasha’s phone.

Fury snorted, but he really did look like he needed a drink. He leaned forward and said, “Tell me what you’ve got, Stark.”

“So apparently Zola uploaded himself into a supercomputer! And not just for evil villain immortality reasons. He was working on something, and he managed to get it out while JARVIS and I were busy trying to make sure Zola couldn’t blow you or your covers up. I can tell it’s an algorithm, a really complex one, and probably for targeting of some sort. Given that this is HYDRA, you can understand why I might be concerned about what they’re going to do with a targeting algorithm.”

“Yeah, I have an idea what they plan to do with it,” said Fury as he settled back into the armchair wearily. “After New York, SHIELD began working on a project to make sure we wouldn’t be caught that unprepared again. Project Insight. The plan was to build three advanced helicarriers, all weaponized and synced to satellites to neutralize threats, able to take out a thousand targets a minute.”

“Threats? What kind of threats? Thought the punishment usually came after the crime,” said Steve.

“We can’t always afford to wait that long.”

“So you decided what amounts to a _Death Star_ was the way to go? That’s HYDRA’s endgame. Use their targeting algorithm and your _three fucking helicarriers,_ Jesus Christ, and hold us all hostage.” Tony was as furious as Steve had ever heard him.

Natasha looked grim but not particularly surprised. Steve didn’t even know how to respond; there was disagreeing with SHIELD’s tactics sometimes, or being unhappy about the exigencies of war, and then there was this. 

“That kind of power shouldn’t be in anyone’s hands, not even SHIELD’s. That’s a gun held to the world’s head. Doesn’t matter who’s holding it or what intentions they have, it’s not right.”

“Is Project Insight complete?” asked Natasha.

“No. Good news: only one helicarrier is ready to go, and it’s the one that was damaged in the fight with Loki and upgraded for Project Insight. Bad news: when I was doing some digging, I got an unwelcome surprise. I don’t have full access to Project Insight.”

“That shouldn’t be possible. You’re Director, there’s no higher access,” said Natasha.

“Exactly.”

“Only one helicarrier’s ready to go though. That’s something, I guess. But the algorithm’s out and in HYDRA’s hands. I think we can assume that they plan to use it, even if the other helicarriers aren’t ready,” said Tony.

“And we have no idea how much of SHIELD is compromised. Pierce is HYDRA and all we can be sure of is that he’s not the only one,” added Natasha.

The only consolation was that the fog of war was likely just as thick for HYDRA as it was for them. Steve said as much and asked, “Do we wait for them to make the next move? They still have Bucky. If they decide to use the Winter Soldier….” Bucky would be back in that chair, months worth of hard-won memories and his own name ripped from him again.

Natasha met Steve’s worried gaze. “Might be the only way we can find him.”

Tony hummed thoughtfully and said, “JARVIS is keeping an eye on all SHIELD communications. If HYDRA really has infiltrated SHIELD to the extent Zola and Pierce’s involvement suggest, then someone’s eventually gonna get sloppy and say something at the wrong place at the wrong time. Big conspiracies have a lot of potential points of failure, and let’s face it, most people are stupid.”

“I’m working on slowing down Insight. That’ll take time though, and I’ve gotta wine and dine the non-evil members of the Security Council. We’ve got a meeting coming up to review progress on Insight, but I can’t take any unilateral action.”

“I think the priority should be making sure we can take down the helicarrier if it becomes necessary. Where is it docked?” asked Steve.

Fury winced. “In a hangar under the Triskelion.”

Natasha closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose. Steve just stared at Fury, aghast at the implications. The silence from Tony’s end began to sound deeply judgmental. 

After a moment of collective horror, Tony finally broke the silence, his voice dangerously flat. “Your Death Star is in Washington DC. Where it is within easy range of the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, and pretty much literally every single other person in line for the presidency, not to mention most of the intelligence apparatus of the United States.”

“In my defense, evil Nazis were not even on my, or anyone else’s, radar, until relatively recently.” 

“Why didn’t we know about this?” asked Steve.

“You didn’t need to know. It’s called compartmentalization.”

Steve bit back his immediate response; it would do nothing but start an argument, and his anger would be too little too late now. He could feel a tension headache building and rubbed at his forehead. “Yeah, I’m thinking the helicarriers should be the priority for now, unless we get a solid lead on Bucky.”

“Agreed. I’d like to bring Maria Hill in. We’re stretched thin, and she’s well positioned to work on the helicarrier side of things. She’s my XO, and I trust her.”

“You trusted Pierce,” said Natasha, her voice cool yet free of judgment.

Fury didn’t flinch. “We need to trust someone. I think the risk that Hill is HYDRA is minimal. And I can count the list of people I trust not to be HYDRA on one hand, at this point.” 

Natasha glanced at Steve and nodded. “Alright, bring Hill in,” said Steve.

“What’s the master plan here, Cap?” asked Tony.

It was a good question. Steve had been too preoccupied with Bucky to spare much thought for the ramifications of Pierce and what could be much of SHIELD being HYDRA. The potential scale of destruction was too big now to maintain that focus on Bucky and the Winter Soldier program though.

“For now, we make sure the helicarriers can’t be used. Sabotage Project Insight or delay it in whatever way we can. We’ve got the advantage for now, but if we make a move against Pierce, it’ll send the rest of HYDRA too far underground to find. We’d be cutting off one head only to let who knows how many take its place.”

“I agree. We keep taking out HYDRA’s assets and weapons until we force them to respond out in the open. If we deprive them of weapons like the helicarriers and the Winter Soldier, we’re in a much better position to move against them. And in the meantime, we can build a foundation of allies in SHIELD, the people we’re fairly sure can’t be HYDRA,” said Natasha.

They hashed out more details over the next couple of hours until they had as solid a war plan as they could manage. Nothing about taking down HYDRA was likely to be easy. But at least they knew where to start.

****

Waiting for HYDRA to make a move was nerve wracking. Natasha and Steve were supposed to continue with business as usual at SHIELD, and while Natasha seemed blithely able to carry on as if nothing had changed and that it wasn’t a dire likelihood that many of their coworkers were part of a HYDRA sleeper cell, Steve found it difficult. Nothing in his wartime experience had prepared him for the awful grind and omnipresent tension of this particular kind of undercover op. Every offhand comment from another agent and every glance from a tech or analyst took on sinister implications. He felt like his new knowledge was writ large across his face. The war, at least, had been clear enough about who and what the enemy was, and hadn’t demanded much in the way of dissimulation outside of raids and ambushes. This was a whole different kind of war.

The increasing stress was enough to drive Steve to go to another one of Sam’s VA meetings, though not before taking thorough precautions to make sure he wasn’t being tailed or surveilled. He sat quietly through the meeting and listened attentively to the other soldiers and Sam. The stories of everyday struggles with reintegrating into civilian life were far removed from SHIELD and HYDRA. Steve didn’t have to assess every person there as if they were a potential threat, didn’t have to worry that he was compromising the mission. It was more relaxing than even his own SHIELD-provided apartment at this point, enough so that Steve stayed in his seat even as the last few soldiers finished their goodbyes and left the room.

When Sam finished talking to the only other person left other than Steve, he pulled a chair over and sat on it backwards to face Steve, chin resting on his arms. “Looks like you’ve had rough week since I saw you last. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just--work stuff. Not as much time for long runs.”

“What, bunch of angry meetings where you’re arguing about the budget? Someone keeps stealing your lunch from the office fridge even though it’s clearly marked ‘property of Captain America’?” joked Sam.

Steve smiled and shook his head. “It’s classified.”

Sam nodded. “Super secret superhero stuff, I get it. But you’re just Steve Rogers here. You can leave it at the door, if you want. No one’s gonna get weird if you decide you want to say your piece in a meeting.”

“Thanks. I’m just not--” Steve felt the burner phone in his left pocket buzz and fished it out with a murmured “excuse me,” to Sam. He had a message from Tony: _loose lips sink ships! they’re activating the winter soldier and i have a location. dc avengers assemble asap. operation save cap’s bff is a go._ The coordinates from Tony were for a location in DC. Had Bucky been so close by the whole time?

Steve rocketed out of his chair, fast enough to tip it over. He caught it before it fell, then ran for the door, calling out to Sam as he left.

“Sorry, gotta go!”

A text from Natasha arrived hard on the heels of Tony’s message: _DO WE KNOW WHO THE TARGET IS?_

_Loose lips not that loose_ , came Tony’s immediate response, and shortly after that, coordinates from Fury. Steve did his best to drive his motorcycle to the location without breaking any traffic laws. The last thing he needed was to get pulled over. But it was difficult not to weave through the late afternoon rush hour traffic at top speed, to let the roar of the wind drown out the litany of _we found Bucky we found Bucky we found Bucky_ in his head.

If they didn’t get there before Bucky was wiped...Steve shoved the thought aside. He’d deal with that if it came to it. Fury’s coordinates directed Steve to a grubby overpass that had signs of being recently abandoned by its usual homeless population. When Steve dismounted, Fury and Natasha emerged from the shadows.

“We need to move on the location Tony gave us and rescue Bucky,” Steve said, ready to argue with Fury and go after Bucky alone if it came down to it. He’d been ready to do that once before to save Bucky from HYDRA’s clutches, and he’d do it again. 

Fury spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “No argument from me. We don’t have confirmation on who the target is, but I’m betting it’s me. I talked to one of the World Security Council members earlier today to gauge where she stood on Insight, and I mentioned slowing down Insight to test the waters a little. Pierce must have found out. This is HYDRA’s next move.”

Natasha mouth twisted into a small, bitter smile. “The leak was with someone on the STRIKE team. Pierce wants them at the location to keep the Winter Soldier under control.”

The STRIKE team. Steve and Natasha had gone on multiple missions with them, and Steve did the majority of his training with them. That betrayal truly stung, and he could tell Natasha felt the same. “Any idea how long we have?”

“STRIKE team was told to be there at 1800. Tony and Bruce figure it takes a couple hours at the very least to get Barnes out of cryo, so I think we’ve got a brief window of time before they wipe him,” Natasha answered.

Fury looked down at his phone and frowned. “There’s a risk this is a trap,” he cautioned.

“I’m willing to take that risk. I’ll go in alone if you don’t want to risk us all.”

“No, we’re going in together. This is our chance to catch Pierce with his hands dirty and nip HYDRA’s whole plan in the bud. We’re bringing Pierce in to face the World Security Council. It’s about 1630 now, we’ve got just enough time to gear up and get there. Best case scenario, Barnes is aware and awake enough to be our ally. Worst case, he’s been wiped and he’s a murder machine. I need you to take him out if that’s the case, Cap.”

“I won’t kill him. I can’t.”

“Neutralize, disable, whatever, I just don’t want the Winter Soldier loose while he’s on HYDRA’s leash.”

“Understood. We’ll take care of it, if it comes to that.” said Natasha.

“ _If_ it comes to that,” added Steve.

****

Steve was grateful the timeline to rescue Bucky was so tight. There was little time to fret over the unknowns and what-ifs. He only regretted that he didn’t have time to give Bucky a heads up. But there was only enough time to gear up, sketch out a quick plan of attack, and make their way to the bank building where Bucky was being held. A quick nap was not on the agenda.

Getting in was easy enough: Pierce didn’t have many guards posted on the perimeter, and he, Natasha, and Fury incapacitated them quickly. Once in the building, they followed the murmur of voices through the former bank’s empty atrium to near where the vaults were.

Pierce was there, along with a half dozen or so heavily armed men. The vault behind him was still sealed shut, and Steve knew that Bucky was likely locked away behind the door. There was no cover between them and Pierce and his men. As soon as they approached the vault, they would be within the armed men’s line of sight. Taking the guards down as quickly as possible would be their only chance at getting to the vault itself. Steve used a few hand gestures to communicate a plan of attack to Fury and Natasha, and after a brief countdown, they launched their attack.

Steve had the advantage of speed, and used it and his shield to make quick work of the HYDRA guards before they could fire more than a few ineffectual rounds. While Steve was busy with his targets, Natasha and Fury swiftly shot the remainder of the guards and swept the room for any more. Steve trained his gun on Pierce, but Pierce simply stayed in his position, looking as unconcerned as if he were standing in his own office. He had a gun in one hand, and his phone in the other, and he kept his aim moving between all three of them. They all circled him warily. There was no telling what Pierce could still set in motion with that phone, and all it would take was one lucky shot with the gun.

“Well, I can’t say I expected this. What exactly is going on here, gentlemen? And lady.”

“I think you know what’s going on, Alexander. Is this the part where you try to convince me you’re not HYDRA?”

“HYDRA? They’re ancient history, no offense to Captain Rogers. Nick, what the hell makes you think I’m HYDRA? Put the guns down, and we can have a talk about this. I think your paranoia has really gotten out of control.”

“Cut the crap. We know about Zola and the algorithm. We know what you planned to do with Project Insight.”

After a moment’s consideration, Pierce dropped his attempt to feign innocence. “And you know, I’m really very interested in how you know about all of that. But it’s going to have to wait. Kind of you to come to me and save me the trouble of sending him after you. It seems a waste of the asset’s skills, but—” Pierce spoke into the phone in his hand and said, “Finish prepping the asset and send him out to me.”

Steve tensed, ready to tear the vault’s door off its hinges if he had to, anything to make sure Bucky never screamed the way he had in that memory ever again, anything to keep that terrible emptiness from entering his eyes. But Steve’s enhanced hearing picked up the reply from the phone, “Sir, the asset isn’t ready, he hasn’t been wiped—”

“Did you not hear the gunshots? We don’t have time, bring him out,” snapped Pierce.

Steve struggled to make sure the relief didn’t show on his face. Bucky was in there, and if the dreams were real, as they surely had to be, then he was still Bucky. Steve would be able to see him in waking life for the first time in seventy years.

“What have you got in the vault, Pierce? Whatever it is, I don’t think the chances are great when you’re up against Captain America. Put the gun and the phone down. It’s over,” said Natasha.

“You’d be surprised. I think Captain Rogers will find fighting this particular asset…difficult, to say the least.”

Steve ignored the taunt, and strained his hearing to pick up anything from behind the vault’s door. Bucky would know his own name, coming out of cryo. He would remember the dreams…wouldn’t he? There had to be guards surrounding Bucky in the vault, all of the memories Bucky had shown Steve guaranteed that. But would Bucky take them all out, not knowing that Steve was outside? They needed to buy Bucky time. Either Fury and Natasha noticed Steve’s focus on the vault, or they were just thinking along the same lines, because they continued to keep Pierce talking.

“Tell me, Pierce, how long have you been a Nazi? Were you a fucking Nazi when they offered you a Nobel Peace Prize? When you were a green State Department diplomat? When you were a SHIELD agent? How long?” asked Fury, voice thick with disgust.

“Come on, Nick. You just want to know why I wanted you as director of SHIELD. If a so-called Nazi appointed you director of SHIELD, what does that make you? Well, I chose you because you’re the best, and the most ruthless person I ever met. You do what it takes to get the job done, without needing to ask why it has to be done. I learned that after Bogota. Don’t pretend you’re better than me, Nick. You were Project Insight’s biggest cheerleader.”

“Yeah, well, I’m having some second thoughts about it now. I tend to reconsider my position when I find out I’m on the same side as motherfucking Nazis.”

“Zola’s targeting algorithm. It’s, what, the Final Solution version 2.0?” asked Natasha. Steve thought he could hear gunfire from inside the vault. He hoped Bucky was okay.

Pierce snorted. “Hitler had the misguided belief that it was just the Jews and some other undesirable minorities that threatened the order of the world. HYDRA knew better. We have the same enemies, you and I: disorder, war. HYDRA is just willing to put the needs of the many above all else. I can bring order to the lives of seven billion people by sacrificing the twenty million identified by Zola’s algorithm.”

That wrenched Steve’s attention from whatever was happening in the vault back to Pierce. “Twenty million people,” he repeated numbly. “There’s no amount of order that’s worth that.”

“Your snooping has pushed the timetable up considerably. The algorithm wasn’t scheduled to be complete for another year, but when Zola noticed you accessing some potentially dangerous files in the archives, he was motivated to work a little faster. Now, all the helicarriers may not be weapons capable yet, but I think we can make do with one. All it will take is one word from me.” Pierce looked at his phone impatiently. “What is taking—”

A loud boom came from the direction of the vault, and then the sound of screeching metal. Pierce looked genuinely uneasy now, and Fury and Natasha stayed wary, both shifting their aim to the vault door, while Steve kept his gun on Pierce. Hope surged in Steve’s chest.

“So who’s the asset, anyway? Seems like they’re not too happy at the moment.”

The vault door was finally torn open to reveal an extraordinarily pissed off Bucky. For a moment, Steve felt like it was the 1930s in Brooklyn again, when the sight of Bucky striding towards Steve to finish a fight Steve had started, face alight with grim anger, was a normal one. But no: this was the Bucky Steve had first seen in his dreams, with longer hair and a black uniform that made him look dangerous, and a cold implacability that was more familiar from the war than from home. This was Bucky, yes, but it was the Winter Soldier too.

“Soldier, report for your mission,” barked Pierce.

Bucky stopped and swung the gun in his hand over to point at Pierce. “No.”

“Soldier, your targets are the three people surrounding me. Eliminate the targets. Do you understand me, Soldier?”

Bucky’s eyes flickered briefly to Steve, then settled back on Pierce.

“My name is James Buchanan Barnes. And I said no.” said Bucky, voice rough but fervent.

Pierce blanched, with rage or fear or both, Steve couldn’t tell. “Guess I should have taken the time to have you wiped.”

“Hey Bucky. Told you I’d find you, didn’t I?”

Bucky took in a shuddering, deep breath and looked at Steve. “Are we dreaming?”

“I—what?”

“Oh boy,” muttered Natasha.

“Steve, you gotta be straight with me. _Are we dreaming_? ‘Cause I can’t—”

Steve lowered his gun and took a halting step towards Bucky, and said, “Hey, no, we’re awake. We’re both awake. I promise. And I am so glad to see you.” His voice shook, and he blinked away tears. Now was absolutely not the time.

Bucky shook his head, the gun still steady on Pierce. “How do I know? It’s been so long, I’ve been fucking asleep for so long, and I can hardly remember what it’s like to be awake. How do you know we’re not dreaming?”

Steve supposed he should have anticipated this. Steve himself had had the rare vertiginous moment when he wondered if he was still in the ice, dreaming. But his lucid dreams had never fully felt like waking life to him. It would be worse for Bucky, who had had nothing to wake to for so long, who had instead just wandered from dream to sleep and back to dream again for years.

“Um, hey, hi.” Natasha waggled her gun at Bucky to get his attention. “You’re not asleep, either of you. Think about how you got here. You remember how you got here, right? You were asleep, then they took you out of cryo and you woke up. Then what?”

“Then I took out the guards. And the scientists.”

Steve caught on to what Natasha was trying to do. “And then you tried to find me, right? If it was a dream, you’d have just ended up with me, right away. But you had to open the door. You couldn’t just imagine it away, so this isn’t your dream. And I can’t change anything, so it’s not mine either. Bucky, we’re awake. We’re not dreaming, I swear.” Bucky’s eyes were locked on his and Steve could see the moment he believed what Steve was telling him.

“Welcome back, Sergeant Barnes,” said Fury.

Bucky let out a hysterical little laugh and said, “Okay. Okay, I’m not dreaming. So what’s the plan here?” He still had his gun aimed unerringly at Pierce, but Pierce was armed too. 

“What _is_ the plan, Nick? Gonna shoot me and tell the Council...what? That I was HYDRA? Like they’d believe you. You’re not going to shoot me.”

“I will. I have a lot of motivation,” said Bucky.

“No one’s shooting anyone. We’re bringing him in. Put the phone down, Pierce,” said Steve.

Maybe Pierce was playing for time now, thought Steve uneasily, and glanced at Natasha, but her focus was on Bucky. He thought he could hear a dull thrumming sound that could be a helicopter.

“Cut off one head, and two more will rise in its place. HYDRA has grown more than you could possibly imagine.”

Bucky cocked his head, and in a moment, Steve heard it too. “We’ve got incoming,” said Bucky, and then everything dissolved into chaos.

The building shook with the impact of an explosion, and HYDRA agents began streaming into the bank. They moved in with practiced speed, aiming most of their fire in Steve and Bucky’s direction. Steve deflected the bullets with his shield, and shouted to Fury and Natasha to keep Pierce secure. Steve saw Natasha take advantage of the chaos and move swiftly to disarm Pierce, before the swarm of HYDRA agents demanded his attention. He and Bucky would have to take on most of them and let Fury and Natasha catch those who got past them.

Though Steve had to keep most of his attention on his own fights, part of his focus was inexorably pulled back to Bucky. Not so much out of worry, because Steve had learned to let that go as best he could during the war, and Bucky had too. Now, Bucky caught his attention for the way he fought. There had always been something a little ruthless in it. Bucky had said simply that he fought to finish the fight, nothing more, nothing less. The way he fought now was that philosophy taken to a super-soldier extreme of brutal efficiency. 

Steve redirected his full attention on the chaotic fight after getting clipped by a bullet that passed just over his shoulder, and settled into the mindless automatic rhythm of the fight. He tried not to think about how many of these HYDRA agents he knew, how many he had fought with in SHIELD training sessions or on missions. The world narrowed to the exchange of blows and bullets and the throw of his shield.

The fight felt endless, but between Steve and Bucky, it reached an end swiftly enough, and Steve turned back to check on Fury and Natasha. They were still engaged with a couple remaining HYDRA agents, Pierce hemmed in behind them against the half-destroyed vault door. Bucky kept Steve covered and turned to scan the room for any more HYDRA agents, and then things moved almost too fast for Steve to follow. 

“Sniper, on your eight! Get down!” called out Bucky, and took aim at a blur of black across the bank’s atrium.

Fury and Natasha had just enough time to roll out of the way of a series of shots, each moving in opposite directions to confuse the sniper, and Steve ran to give Natasha cover under his shield. Fury moved towards Pierce, but Pierce had used the distraction to make a dive for a discarded gun in the hand of a downed HYDRA agent. Pierce took aim at Fury, his finger already depressing the trigger, when two shots from Natasha bloomed red on Pierce’s chest. Another shot from Bucky, and the sniper’s fire ceased. 

Steve stopped mid run and Bucky whipped around to stare at Pierce’s now prone form. Pierce’s labored breaths seemed to fill the whole bank in the absence of gunfire.

“So much for bringing him in,” said Fury, leveling a glare at Natasha.

A flash of annoyance crossed her face, but she simply said, “You’re welcome.”

No one moved to help Pierce. Natasha’s aim had been true: there would be no saving him. Bucky walked towards Pierce with a predatory stride that had Steve worried, but he just stopped and stared at Pierce. Steve joined him, ready to stop Bucky from—from Steve didn’t even know what. But Bucky only stood and watched as Pierce rattled out his dying breaths. 

Pierce summoned what breath he had left and said, with a weak smirk, “Hail HYDRA.” He fell silent and still after that.

They all stayed frozen a moment, watching Pierce’s body, before Fury bent down to take the phone that was still in Pierce’s hand. 

“Did he make the call?” asked Natasha.

Fury studied the phone, face grim. “Yeah, he made the call. Fuck. He’s set his whole evil goddamn master plan in motion.”

“So we stop it.”

“Easier said than done. But yeah, we stop it. Getting the helicarrier out of the hangar and into the sky is going to require at least one Alpha Level authorization. Whoever’s left at the top of the HYDRA food chain is going to use the World Security Council to get it. They’re due here for a meeting to go over the progress on Insight the day after tomorrow. I was planning to use the opportunity to convince them to delay it, but apparently Pierce was planning to have me killed as an excuse to rush it.”

“Then we crash the meeting and tell the Council everything. The priority is not letting the helicarrier get in the air,” said Natasha.

“I’m getting the feeling we won’t be able to just walk into the Triskelion to do it. I doubt this was all the support HYDRA had,” said Steve, gesturing to the scattered bodies of HYDRA agents.

Bucky shook his head and said, “It definitely isn’t. Half of these guys are just mercs. HYDRA has more, and Pierce has probably mobilized all of them.”

“I agree. We need to treat the Triskelion as enemy territory at this point. I’ve got some contingencies in place, but I’m gonna need a day to get everything ready. You all find somewhere to go to ground. Don’t contact anyone at SHIELD yet, don’t go anywhere anyone at SHIELD would expect you to go. I’ll have orders for all of you tomorrow.”

“Understood, sir,” said Steve. 

“And Barnes…” Fury turned his eye to Bucky and said, “You know your own mind?”

Bucky straightened to attention. “Yessir.”

“You willing to join this fight against HYDRA?”

“Yessir.”

“Not gonna snap and kill us all?”

“No sir.”

“Good enough for me. Stay safe and don’t get caught.”

****

As soon as they stepped out of the bank, “stay safe and don’t get caught” revealed itself to be a complicated goal. The chopper Steve had heard earlier was still circling overhead, its lights making regular sweeps of the dark city around them, and the sound of approaching sirens made it clear that the gunfire and explosions in the former bank had not gone unnoticed. There would likely be a perimeter set up soon, if there wasn’t one already. Steve didn’t want to split up from Bucky and Natasha, but he knew they would all have to scatter, and scatter quickly, to divide the attention of the police and HYDRA. Fury gave them a nod and melted into the darkness, leaving them to work out how they’d stay under the radar until they made their move on the Triskelion.

Natasha surveyed their surroundings and said, “Any idea where to go, Steve? I’ve got safe houses, but all my options in DC are ones SHIELD probably knows about.”

“And all my options are HYDRA safe houses, best as I can remember,” added Bucky.

“I think our best bet is to split up for now and get past whatever perimeter is set up, then regroup before we find somewhere to lie low. I think I’ve got an idea where we can do that, but first we need to get past all this.”

“We should regroup somewhere public and crowded, if at all possible. No one’s gonna want to shoot Captain America in full sight of the American people,” said Natasha.

“At this time of night?” asked Bucky, eyeing the dark night sky. He was right, it was inching towards the small hours of the night. 

“I say we meet at Union Station for the first trains of the day. It’ll be crowded enough even then, and we figure out where to go from there. You know how to get there, Barnes?”

“I’ve been briefed on DC before, I can find my way,” he answered.

“Alright, Union Station it is. Bucky—” Steve wanted to grab Bucky and just hold on, wanted to have the kiss Bucky had promised they’d have in the waking world. Splitting up now felt like letting go of Bucky only to lose him again. The circumstances of their reunion weren’t exactly ideal so far.

Bucky caught the direction of his thoughts, and shook his head to cut them off. “Don’t, Steve. I’ll see you in a few hours, okay?”

“Okay,” said Steve, his eyes fixed on Bucky. He clenched his jaw on the torrent of things he wanted to say, and instead repeated, “Okay. Stay safe, both of you.” They all split up then, and Steve forced himself not to look back for a glimpse of Bucky.  

They had dispersed just in time to dodge the latest wave of HYDRA agents. Steve had to knock out a couple he was unable to avoid as he made his way through the alleys and streets surrounding the bank cum HYDRA base. Other than that, his escape was uneventful if tense, and he could only fervently hope that Natasha and Bucky’s escapes were too. He didn’t hear any gunfire at least. 

There was indeed a perimeter of HYDRA agents covering the blocks surrounding the bank, but it was a patchy one from what Steve could tell. For all Pierce’s grandstanding, it was clear HYDRA had been taken by surprise and were scrambling to put Pierce’s plan into motion. Steve took to the roofs to get past the perimeter, where it was easier to dodge the occasional sweep of the chopper’s searchlight than to slip unseen past HYDRA agents. Once he was reasonably certain he had left the HYDRA agents behind, he ducked into an all-night laundromat and grabbed the first thing that would fit him from an unattended load of clothes in a dryer. He put on the baggy hooded sweatshirt over the shield strapped to his back, left an apologetic $20 with the rest of the clothes, and returned to the streets to take a winding route to Union Station. It wasn’t much as disguises went, and he looked decidedly strange with the bulk of the shield under the sweatshirt, but it would have to do.

When he got to Union Station, he headed down to the platform where the first Metro train of the day was pulling in with the dawn, and sleepy early commuters were going to their offices. He sat down on one of the benches, and scanned the sparse crowd for Bucky or Natasha, but he didn’t see either of them. The minutes ticked on and Steve waited. He took out his burner phone to check if Natasha had texted him. She hadn’t. He contemplated texting her, but decided not to risk the contact, not yet anyway. Bucky didn’t have a phone, burner or otherwise. If Bucky didn’t show for this meeting, Steve didn’t know how the hell they could get in contact with him. He should have considered that before they split up. He checked his phone again. He hoped he didn’t look too suspicious. He didn’t want to attract any attention from the Metro cops. Maybe he should switch benches. 

Before he could move, someone sat next to him and Steve nearly startled out of his own skin. But it was just Bucky, and Steve slumped in relief. He allowed himself a moment to lean against the solid bulk of Bucky at his side, and turned to look at him. Bucky had pulled his long hair back and acquired a dark jacket and gloves that covered this metal arm. He looked like any twenty-something who’d had a long night shift or a wild night. He looked, already, like he belonged in the 21st century.

“Said a few hours, didn’t I?” murmured Bucky.

The next train screeched onto the platform, and Natasha joined them on the bench. 

“So, where are we headed?” she asked.  

****

They were headed to Sam Wilson’s doorstep. Steve reasoned that he was unconnected to SHIELD or Steve himself, beyond their morning runs. No one would think of going to VA counsellor Sam Wilson to look for Steve or Natasha, plus he was former military. And Steve trusted Sam. He liked to think he had good instincts, when it came to people, and Steve trusted Sam to at the very least not be HYDRA, and to give them a place to lie low. 

He said as much to Natasha and Bucky, who for all that they hadn’t actually properly met before now, exchanged the sort of long-suffering glance that suggested mutual exasperation over Steve was more than enough basis for a fast friendship.

“Anyone got any better ideas?” demanded Steve.

No one did, so Natasha looked up Sam’s address, and within an hour, Steve was knocking on Sam’s back door. When Sam opened the door, eyebrows already raised, Steve tried for what he hoped was a “trust me, I’m Captain America,” sort of smile and said, “I’m sorry to do this. We’re kind of on the run, can we come in?”

Sam looked them over, scanned the street behind them, and opened the door wider to let them in. Bucky immediately prowled around Sam’s living room, closing the blinds and checking lines of sight. Steve took off his bulky sweatshirt and unstrapped his shield.

“So, on the run?” asked Sam, as he squinted at Bucky, clearly trying to place how or if he recognized him.

“Long story short, an indeterminate but significant percentage of SHIELD is actually HYDRA. Also, hi, I’m Natasha.” 

Bucky finally noticed Sam’s inquisitive look, and shifted uncomfortably before saying, “Hi. I’m Bucky.”

“Bucky Barnes. _The_ Bucky Barnes?” Sam looked to Steve for confirmation. Steve nodded and beamed in response, because maybe half their coworkers were evil Nazis and Washington DC was under threat of being held hostage by HYDRA, but Bucky was alive and here and not just in his dreams. He could spare a moment, now, to just be happy about that. 

“How the hell—you know what, never mind. Think this is a conversation that will go down better with pancakes and coffee,” said Sam, gesturing them towards the kitchen.

They sat around Sam’s kitchen table, and Sam busied himself with the business of making breakfast.

“I’m sorry to bring this to your door, Sam. But I couldn’t think of anywhere else safe to go where SHIELD wouldn’t look for us. We’ll be out of your hair in a few hours.”

“We’ll see about that. How ‘bout you tell me what the hell is going on that brings Black Widow, Captain America, and his formerly dead BFF to my door?”

Steve and Natasha gave Sam a brief rundown of the situation with SHIELD and HYDRA, while Bucky stared into his coffee like it held all the secrets of the universe. There was a slightly wild look around his eyes that Steve recognized from the days immediately after Steve had pulled him off the table in Zola’s lab. They had been short on time then too, with only one night to just be SteveandBucky again, and hold on to each other in desperate gratitude before the war encroached again. 

“Okay. Evil Nazis at all levels of the US government. Got it. But, uh, I paid attention in history class. I thought Bucky Barnes was…” Sam paused, clearly casting about for an appropriate euphemism before giving up and settling on, “dead.”

Bucky snorted, but didn’t say anything and just rubbed at his face with his hand. “Rumors of his death, etcetera,” Natasha answered for him.

“HYDRA had me,” added Bucky, looking up. “Steve found me.”

“No, Bucky found me,” Steve contradicted, earning him an eye roll from Bucky. “It’s, um, kind of a long story.” 

“Right,” said Sam. There was an awkward pause while Steve internally debated the merits of telling Sam about the shared dreams. They’d already brought a whole load of crazy to Sam’s door. 

Steve had just settled on a vague explanation about side effects of the Super Soldier Serum when Bucky turned a suddenly stricken gaze to Natasha and broke the silence. “I shot you. The last time they took me out of cryo, in Odessa. I’m so sorry.”

Natasha blinked in surprise. “It’s okay. You weren’t exactly…you at the time, were you?”

“Still. I really am sorry.” Bucky gave her the sad-eyed look that tended to melt even the hardest hearts. Steve thought Bucky had maybe forgotten the effect of that look; having been the too-frequent recipient of Bucky’s tragic big blue eyes for calamities so small as Steve drinking the last of the milk or turning off the radio, he was long since immune, but there was no denying that Bucky looked particularly sincere and winsome at the moment.Natasha had no such immunity, and her face softened a little, to Bucky’s apparent surprise.

“Apology accepted, then,” she said, and smiled when Bucky ducked his head a little. Steve didn’t know if he should be impressed or alarmed by how quickly Bucky had managed to charm Natasha. 

She got up from the table and asked Sam, “Any chance I could use your shower? It’s been a long night.”

Sam said yes and directed her to the hallway off the living room, and Steve knew Natasha was maneuvering to give him and Bucky a moment alone. 

“Hey, you okay?”

“We’re really awake. I’m really awake. And Pierce is dead.” Bucky’s eyes were fever bright, hands clenching and unclenching on the kitchen table. Steve put his hands on Bucky’s, stilling their restless motion, and all of a sudden, he couldn’t stand even the meager distance of the kitchen table between them, and Bucky must have felt the same because they were scrambling off the chairs and smashing ungracefully into each others’ arms. 

It was different, when it wasn’t in a dream. Steve realized he hadn’t ever been able to smell anything in the dreams, and now with his face tucked into Bucky’s neck, he could smell gun oil and something faintly metallic, plus the sweat and grime he and Bucky had accumulated through the long night. It grounded him in the reality of the moment, eased some of the tension that had taken root in his bones. Bucky was shaking a little, and so was Steve, but when Bucky pulled back to bring a hand to Steve’s face, his hand was steady.

“Does this count as doing it right?” asked Steve, a little shakily.They were both alive and awake, and goddammit, Steve wanted to kiss Bucky before everything went to hell again.

“Such a one track mind. Excuse me for wanting to get this right, I’ve only been waiting the better part of a century,” murmured Bucky, and then he brought his lips to Steve’s, his hands moving to clutch at Steve’s shoulders.

Bucky’s lips were warm and dry, and Steve maybe wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he didn’t care. He brought his hands to cup Bucky’s face as Bucky deepened the kiss. Bucky kept it slow and sweet, as if he was doing his best to carve out a place in space and time where they weren’t on the run and another war wasn’t looming over them. Bucky was kissing him like they had all the time in the world. Steve matched his gentle pace, and lost himself in the slow slide of lips and tongue. Steve knew now what Bucky had meant by wanting to do this right: this kiss was a promise, one he could maybe let himself believe in. 

They finally separated when Bucky startled a little at Sam’s return to the kitchen. Steve felt the blood rush to his face, but he met Sam’s wide eyes with a raised eyebrow. He wasn’t ashamed. Beside him, Bucky was tensed for fight or flight.

“Well that didn’t make the history books.”

“We weren’t…there wouldn’t have been anything to write about, back then,” said Steve.

Sam smiled, easy and open. “Congratulations then? Better late than never.” 

“…Thanks,” said Bucky, relaxing incrementally. 

“Uh, Natasha’s done with the shower, if either of you wanna go next.”

“We’re kinda offensively smelly, I take it?”

“Didn’t wanna say it, but…” Sam said, hands raised. 

****

Once they were all showered and fed, it was just a matter of waiting for Fury’s call. Steve was no stranger to the hurry up and wait of wartime and mission prep, but he wasn’t willing to just sit idly by and let Fury make all the plans. He told Natasha as much when they were all seated around Sam’s kitchen table again.

“One of Fury’s priorities is going to be salvaging what he can of SHIELD,” warned Natasha.

“You really think anything can be salvaged at this point? It was SHIELD that was ready and willing to go ahead with Project Insight, not just HYDRA.”

“And take it from me, HYDRA must have been with SHIELD from the start. Whatever you do to stop Project Insight isn’t going to shake all of them loose,” said Bucky.

Sam sat back in his chair. “Hold on a second. It sounds like you’re talking about taking down a whole federal agency. By, what, blowing up the Triskelion?”

Natasha frowned at Sam and said, “We should at least blow up the helicarriers.”

“Right, I’m on board with blowing up the Death Stars, but the Triskelion? They can’t all be HYDRA,” said Sam.

Sam was right. Steve hadn’t seriously considered blowing up the Triskelion, and he doubted Fury would either. But it was clear enough that dealing with this incarnation of HYDRA would take more than some espionage and taking out a few moles.

“We need to tell everyone what’s going on, get it all out in the open. It’ll force HYDRA’s hand.”

“How far out in the open do you want it to be?” asked Natasha.

“Really far. Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” Steve replied, and Natasha nodded slowly in acknowledgment. 

“If the helicarrier manages to get in the air, we’re gonna need air support,” noted Bucky.

“Stark’s out of commission. He’s still got at least one suit ready to go, but he’s in no condition to fly it without killing himself. Fury told him to lie low with Banner.”

“Colonel Rhodes?” asked Steve.

Natasha shook her head. “Out of the country on some classified op. Can’t be extracted in time.”

“I think I can help with your air support problem,” said Sam, and left the room. When he returned, he tossed a couple of files onto the table. “Consider this my resume.”

Natasha leaned over to take a look at the file, and turned sharp eyes to Sam. “Is this Bakhmala? The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you?” she asked, and shot a reproving glance at Steve. “You didn’t say he was a pararescue.”

Steve pulled out one of the photos in the file, of Sam and a blond man in uniform in the desert. “This Riley?” he asked, and Sam nodded.

Natasha continued to look at the file and Bucky peered at it over her shoulder. “Heard they couldn’t use choppers because of the RPGs. What’d you use, a stealth chute?” she asked.

“No, these,” answered Sam, and handed them one of the files labelled “EXO-7 FALCON CLASSIFIED.”

A quick perusal confirmed that Sam wasn’t exaggerating about being air support: the file showed Sam in what looked like a set of mechanical wings, apparently intended for pararescue missions in circumstances that wouldn’t allow for easy helicopter or plane access. Bucky let out a small huff of disbelieving laughter, his eyes bright with an echo of the same joy he had taken in Howard Stark’s attempt at a flying car.

“Thought you said you were a pilot,” said Steve.

“I never said pilot,” answered Sam with a small grin. 

Steve smiled back, but somber reality quickly intruded again, and he shook his head. “I can’t ask you to do this. You got out for a good reason.”

“Dude, Captain America needs my help. There’s no better reason to get back in.” Sam’s face was firm with resolve. Steve looked to Natasha and Bucky: Natasha just nodded, and Bucky leaned back in his seat, an amused tilt to his mouth that said clearly, “Are you really surprised?” Bucky had been the one to help Steve pick out the Howling Commandos out of the 107th, and he had given him the same exact look when to Steve’s surprise, every single one had joined the squad without reservations.

He turned back to Sam. “Where can we get our hands on one of these things?”

“Last one is at Fort Meade. Behind three guarded gates and a twelve-inch steel wall.”

Steve exchanged a glance with Natasha, who gave a nonchalant shrug. Bucky just raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Steve looked back to Sam and said, “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

And that was how they ended up stealing highly advanced military technology from Fort Meade in broad daylight. All things considered, it was actually the easiest thing they had done in the past couple of days. 

****

Fury contacted them that afternoon with instructions to meet him at one of the Potomac’s dams. After a brief heated argument about how they should all get there (Natasha and Bucky thought they should all split up again, Steve and Sam disagreed), they settled on Sam just driving them there. The news was silent on what had happened at the bank where they found Bucky and on Pierce’s death, which meant that HYDRA was likely still scrambling to respond and trying to stay hidden.

Though Natasha and Bucky were grimly prepared for everything to go FUBAR judging by the way they loaded up on weaponry, the drive was in fact mostly uneventful at first. They spotted more than a few suspiciously nondescript black SUVs, and a noticeably heightened police presence, but no one stopped them. 

Bucky observed it all carefully from his slumped position in the backseat and remarked, “They really were caught off guard. They’ll be concentrating their forces on the Triskelion, since they know we’re gonna have to go back there to stop Project Insight.”

Natasha nodded in agreement. “Pierce was overconfident. He was banking on having the Winter Soldier take out Fury, and probably Steve too, and then he’d ride the wave of chaos to get Insight up and running. Gotta say, your little Inception dream sharing trick turned out to be pretty damned helpful. Zola and Pierce knew we were onto them, but no way they saw the Winter Soldier turning on them coming.”

That got Sam’s attention. “Wait, what?” His eyes darted to all of them to gauge their expressions before he focused on the road again.

Bucky smirked and Steve winced. He was not looking forward to explaining this again. He would have taken an awkward explanation over the potential fight he saw looming ahead of them though. A couple of police cars weaved ahead with their lights on and cleared a few lanes. Traffic had slowed to a crawl, and cars were being diverted to a single-lane checkpoint. 

“It’s too early in the day for a DUI checkpoint,” said Natasha.

“I can find us a detour,” offered Sam, but it quickly became clear that they were too boxed in by the sudden snarl of traffic.

Natasha checked her phone and shook her head. “Traffic’s a mess on all the routes out of the city, and there are more checkpoints all over. We won’t be able to avoid all of them.”

“Ditch the car and go on foot then?” asked Sam.

“No, go through the checkpoint,” answered Steve. Sam tore his gaze from the road to stare incredulously at Steve, and Bucky heaved a put-upon sigh from behind him.

“Oh, one of _those_ plans, is it?” 

“We’re made either way. Go through the checkpoint, see how they react to seeing us, then we gun it and do our best to lose them.”

As they inched their way towards the checkpoint, Steve made sure his shield was within easy reach at his feet, and Natasha and Bucky shifted around in the backseat arming themselves. By the time they reached the police officer who gestured for Sam to roll down his window, the weapons were all concealed again, and Bucky made a show of being asleep, face turned into the seat to be less visible.

Sam rolled down the window and asked, “Is there a problem, officer?” 

Steve didn’t bother trying to hide his face, and tried to brazen it out. Either the cops were HYDRA or they weren’t, and either way they wouldn’t be fooled by a ball cap pulled low, not this close up.

“Anything we can help you with sir?” asked Steve, looking the man straight in the face.

“I’m going to need all of you to step out of the car.”

More police officers circled the car, and a glance at the rearview mirrors showed that a large black SUV was weaving through traffic a few hundred yards behind them. When the officer at Sam’s window began to reach for his gun. Sam slammed on the gas before the gun was in the officer’s hand, and they peeled away from the checkpoint as fast as Sam’s car could accelerate. A spray of gunfire followed, one bullet shattering the glass of the car’s rear window.

“Is there any more to this plan than just drive away?” shouted Sam. Three police cars were in pursuit, plus the black SUV, and they were all shooting. Steve grabbed his shield and squeezed himself into the gap between the two front seats to give Sam some cover with the shield.

“Don’t swerve too much,” suggested Bucky, and then he grabbed a gun, opened the window on his side of the car and squeezed his upper body through it. His movements were as slow and unhurried as if he had all the time in the world to line up his shot. Meanwhile, Natasha broke what was left of the rear window and laid down suppressive fire through it at the vehicles in pursuit. A few rounds of fire from Bucky, and the police cars swerved wildly out of control, deprived of their drivers or with their tires shot out, Steve couldn’t tell. Bucky slid smoothly back into the car to reload.

That left them with the SUV, and maybe all the rest of Washington DC’s police force bearing down on them. For now though, it was just the SUV, and it had abandoned any pretense it might have had towards discreetly tailing them. What cars were left on the road were being forced off of it by the SUV’s aggressive driving.

“Slow down!” called out Natasha.

“What? That thing’s about to ram us!”

“I need to get closer to it, slow down!”

Sam let out a stream of curses under his breath, but he slowed down. Natasha pulled out a couple small devices and tossed one to Bucky.

“Make sure it lands on the hood. Rogers, give us some cover.”

As the SUV loomed closer, Steve obligingly kept up a steady stream of shots, enough to draw fire towards him rather than towards Bucky and Natasha, who were now positioned as low as they could be in the backseat while still seeing over it through the broken rear window. The SUV put on a sudden burst of speed and rammed them, sending the car forward with a harsh jolt, and Bucky and Natasha tossed the devices onto the SUV’s hood. The devices emitted what looked like a crackle of electricity before the SUV’s headlights abruptly went out. When Sam accelerated, the SUV stayed idle behind them, clearly stalled. 

“We need to switch vehicles,” said Bucky. He peered over the backseat and added, “Your bumper’s falling off.”

Sam grimaced as he checked his mirrors and got a good look at some of the damage. “Thanks, buddy. Not sure how I’m gonna explain this to my insurance company.”

“I’m so sorry, Sam. I swear, I will buy you a new car,” Steve promised.

Natasha directed Sam through city streets that weren't yet infested with HYDRA until she was satisfied no one was tailing them. They ditched Sam’s car in an automated underground parking lot, and left the lot in the most rundown, easy to ignore car they had been able to find. The police were still out in force, but apparently they were actual police and not HYDRA, because no one stopped them as Sam drove them on sedately to their destination. 

Sam eyed the cops suspiciously and kept his hands clenched tight on the steering wheel. “Any idea what’s going on? Are we clear to get to your guy’s secret lair or whatever?”

Steve checked his phone, and found a series of texts from Tony who was clearly going stir crazy in whatever bunker he and Bruce had retreated to per Fury and Steve’s orders. Sifting through the Tony-ness of the messages, and a lot of increasingly inappropriate questions about his “unfrozen bff,” he got the gist: “Tony and JARVIS are covering our tracks, at least. They’re scrubbing us from any security footage we’re showing up on,” relayed Steve.

“It’s a shitshow out there: no one knows what’s going on, including the police, apparently. There’s an APB out on Sam’s car, but they have some out on SHIELD vehicles too,” added Natasha, looking up from her phone.

“Nothing on us specifically?” asked Steve.

Natasha shook her head. “I’m guessing putting out an APB on Captain America isn’t something HYDRA’s willing to do just yet. It’ll raise more questions than they can answer. Barnes is right, they’re focusing on the Triskelion and Insight. They can’t pull the trigger on their final solution until the Council shows up tomorrow, and once they do, we don’t matter. Someone’s decided to cut their losses.”

“Stopping Insight is gonna mean walking into a war zone,” warned Bucky.

Steve met Bucky’s serious gaze in the rearview mirror. “Yeah. I know.” 

****

As soon as Fury met them at the dam, he assessed Sam and then glared balefully at Steve. “Anyone else you want to bring into our secret conspiracy to overthrow HYDRA? Your barista? Your local librarian, maybe?” 

Sam ignored Fury’s griping and stuck out his hand. “Sam Wilson, former pararescue with the Falcon program. I’m your air support.”

Fury sighed and shook Sam’s hand. “Welcome aboard. I’m going to hope Cap knows what he’s doing, bringing you in on this.”

“I do,” Steve affirmed, and followed Fury as he led them into the dam.

Sam wasn’t far wrong in calling the location of their meeting Fury’s secret lair. As they got further into the innards of the dam, the featureless tunnels opened up to reveal a makeshift command center. It was dingy and overwhelmingly gray, all dull concrete and metal, but the equipment and computers looked new enough. Still, it reminded Steve uncomfortably of Bucky’s memories of HYDRA bases. Judging by the tension Steve could feel radiating from Bucky, it wasn’t just him. Steve edged closer to him to brush his hand against Bucky’s, and netted a half-reproachful, half-grateful glance for it. They all settled around the command center’s single table.

“Both Hill and Stark have eyes on what’s going on in the Triskelion, and it’s a mess. People have noticed we’re AWOL. Hill’s playing dumb, and Sitwell’s shutting down everyone who asks about what’s going on,” said Fury.

Natasha sucked in a sharp breath. “Sitwell? He’s HYDRA then.”

“Looks like it.” Fury pulled out a small case and opened it to reveal three computer chips of some kind. 

“What’s that?” asked Sam.

“This is how we stop Insight. All the carriers are flight capable, but the two still under construction don’t have complete weapons arrays, so we need to take all of them out. We have to assume everyone on and around the helicarrier is HYDRA. We get past them, get these chips into the helicarriers’ server blades, and they’ll override the targeting from Insight and target the remaining under construction helicarriers instead.Then, it will initiate a self-destruct sequence for the fully functioning helicarrier. Maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what’s left after that,” said Fury.

Natasha had been right. Fury still thought there was something left to salvage. Steve certainly didn’t think there was, and said so. “We’re not salvaging anything. We’re not just taking down the helicarriers, Nick. We’re taking down SHIELD.”

“SHIELD had nothing to do with this!” retorted Fury.

Steve matched Fury’s raised voice with his own. “SHIELD’s been compromised! HYDRA grew right under your nose, and nobody noticed.”

“Why do you think we’re meeting in this cave? I noticed.”

“How many paid the price before you did?” asked Steve.

Fury glanced at Bucky and said, “I told you, I didn’t know about Barnes.”

“This isn’t just about Bucky, or about us. Even if you had known, would you have told me? Or would you have compartmentalized that too?” Steve shook his head. “SHIELD, HYDRA, it all goes.”

“He’s right,” added Natasha.

Fury directed a quick searching stare that was equal parts wounded and angry at each of them. 

Sam stood firm, but nodded at Steve and said, “Don’t look at me, I’m with Cap on this.”

Bucky’s face was set in a harsh and cold mask. “Take it from HYDRA’s pet weapon. Zola’s been there from the start. There’s nothing to salvage.” 

“You know, Hill said the same thing,” said Fury, settling back in his seat with a sigh. “Well. Looks like you’re giving the orders now, Captain.”

From there, it was a matter of planning their infiltration of the Triskelion. Hill would rally what support she could from within, while Fury and Natasha made their way into the World Security Council meeting, and while Steve, Bucky, and Sam worked on disabling the helicarriers. As a plan, it wasn’t particularly complex. There was just too much uncertainty still about how much support HYDRA had and what force they could muster. A flexible, barebones plan would have to do, and Steve could only hope they weren’t walking into a slaughter.

After they had gone over the plan for the third time, Steve concluded the meeting. “Okay. We’re a go at 0500 tomorrow. Until then, let’s get our gear together and get some rest.”

****

Fury directed them to a few rooms, closets really, that had cots and supplies of MREs and ammo. Bucky strode towards one and Steve hurried after him, loathe to let Bucky out of his sight and hoping to take some of the downtime to talk, to see where Bucky’s head was at. But Bucky just started divesting himself of the veritable armory on his person, checking guns and restocking his supply of ammo. Steve hovered awkwardly in the doorway for a moment before pulling out a couple of MREs and settling on one of the cots.

“Hey, Buck, sit down with me for a second. We’ve got enough time for all that later.”

Bucky didn’t stop though, and pulled out a couple knives from god knew where, adding them to the pile of weaponry on the cot. His hands were steady, but the lines of his back and shoulders were stretched as taut as a bowstring about to snap.

“Bucky, please.”

“If I stop—I can’t stop. I can’t stop and think, I will fucking lose it if I do, so please—”

And here it was, thought Steve, right on time. He knew this was an order of magnitude different from all the other times Bucky had run himself into the ground with exhaustion and anger, both before and during the war. Bucky had always needed to keep moving until he couldn’t, until he near to shook apart with the force of his exhaustion and frustration, and Steve was usually there to talk him through it until he finally calmed down and fell asleep. Before the war, Steve would just ramble on about the neighborhood news or his art classes or whatever he’d read recently. During the war, it hadn’t seemed to help as much, but he had still done it, babbling about the USO tour until he could make Bucky crack a smile before getting what broken sleep he could.

“You have a couple hours to lose it, if you need to. You need to get some rest.”

Bucky whirled to face him. “Rest? I’ve been asleep for the better part of 70 years! I am not going to goddamn go to sleep.”

“So was I, doesn’t mean I still don’t need to actually sleep. Come on, Buck. Lie down with me.”

“If I go to sleep, I’ll dream.”

“Yeah. You’ll dream with me, hopefully. Same as you have been.”

“And then I’ll wake up, and I won’t know if I’m really awake. Christ, I’m still not sure this is all real. My head’s a fucking mess, Steve,” said Bucky, voice shaking now and eyes trained on the wall behind Steve.

“Hey, this is real. I’m really here. Remember what Natasha said? You know how you got here. You’re awake. We’re both really awake.”

“My head’s a fucking mess,” repeated Bucky. “You think everything’s okay, that I’m your Bucky, but I’m not. I’m just what’s left of him.”

Steve couldn’t let that stand. He rose from the cot to reach for Bucky, but Bucky jerked away to pace the small room, arms crossed tight against his chest.

“I love you. Whatever you’ve been through, whatever you think is left of you: I love all of you. Please believe that.” It seemed like precious little comfort in the face of seventy years of HYDRA’s torture, but Steve didn’t know what else he could say or do. All his focus had been on finding Bucky and stopping HYDRA. It was wishful thinking to expect an uncomplicated happily-ever-after after all that.

“I know. I just—” Bucky stopped his pacing, his shoulders dropping in sudden weariness. “I had three sisters, didn’t I? I don’t remember all of their names. I don’t—there’s a lot I don’t remember. What if I never remember?” Bucky turned to Steve, and his eyes were wet with the shine of unshed tears. He rubbed at his eyes with his flesh hand, and the familiarity of the gesture, still the same as it had been when Bucky had been seven years old, filled Steve with a surge of desperate tenderness.

Steve pulled Bucky towards him, and now Bucky didn’t resist, dropping his head on Steve’s shoulder. “Your sisters’ names were Rebecca, Ruth, and Sarah. Whatever you remember or don’t remember, you’re still James Buchanan Barnes.” Bucky shook in his arms a little, a convulsive shudder that rattled them both before Steve held on tighter, tight enough to hold the both of them together.

They stayed like that for a while, and when Bucky pulled back, his eyes were red but he looked more settled.

“Come on, let’s have a bite to eat and get a few hours of shut eye.” Steve tossed one of the MREs to Bucky, who caught it with a grimace.

“Sure know how to treat a fella, don’t you?”

“I promise you a real meal when this is all over. Whatever you want. Food’s gotten a lot better since the 40s. Hell, even the rations are better, actually.”

Bucky poked at his MRE suspiciously. “That’s not saying much.”

They both ate quickly, and then without discussion, shoved the two cots together to make a semblance of a bigger bed before they turned off the the light. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but they’d both slept in worse places. Though there was no need for warmth in the comfortable cool of the dam, Bucky settled in close against Steve’s back anyway, arm draped over him to rest his hand over Steve’s heart. It was a familiar position, even if Steve was bigger now: Bucky had always slept this way when they shared the same bed on cold winter nights in Brooklyn, or in icy tents in the field. Something that was either the memory of grief or the joy of reunion made Steve blink into the darkness against the sudden tears that rose in his eyes. Bucky dropped a kiss against the back of his neck as if he could tell.

“Buck?”

“Thought you said we should get some rest. Go to sleep, Steve.”

“I have to ask. If you don’t want to walk into another war, you don’t have to. You’re not my pet weapon.”

Bucky’s hand clenched into the fabric of Steve’s shirt. “Don’t be stupid.”

“I mean it, Bucky. You have every reason to want to stay out of this fight. I don’t want you to think you have to--”

“I have seventy years’ worth of reasons to stay in it,” said Bucky, voice heated. Steve could feel Bucky puff out an exasperated huff of air onto his neck before he continued in a rough, quiet voice that somehow filled the quiet dark, “I’m not doing this just for you. I’m choosing this.”

_Allow him the dignity of his choice_ , Peggy had said, all those years ago after Bucky had fallen. Steve didn’t think he could bear it if he lost Bucky again. But this was Bucky’s choice, and Steve wouldn’t, couldn’t, take that from him. He brought Bucky’s hand to his lips in silent apology. He’d just have to do his best to keep Bucky safe.  

Steve dropped off quickly after that, lulled to sleep by the blessedly familiar sound of Bucky’s breathing, and didn’t dream.

****

When Natasha knocked on the door a few hours later, she only gave them a few seconds warning with a breezy, “Hope you’re decent boys, I’m coming in,” before she opened the door. Steve and Bucky had gotten hopelessly tangled together in their sleep, but Bucky managed to dive for one of his knives anyway before registering that it was Natasha at the door and collapsing back on Steve’s chest with a strangled growl. Steve rubbed Bucky’s back in apology for Natasha being Natasha, but did nothing to disentangle himself from Bucky. The way Bucky was sprawled on top of him was making his dick take notice.

He shoved all thoughts of arousal aside and asked, “Time to go?”

Natasha raised an eyebrow at the sight of them. “Is that how it is?” Steve glared. “Never mind, we’re discussing this later, Steve. And yeah, time to go. We need to get moving in 15.”

The sun hadn’t quite risen yet, but they had a couple stops to make before they hit the Triskelion. One was at the Smithsonian.

“I swear to god Rogers, if this whole plan gets derailed by us getting arrested because you got nostalgic for your old uniform, I will kill you myself,” said Natasha, her voice low and close over the comms. Natasha was on lookout duty with Sam, with Fury as the wheelman.

“If you’re gonna fight a war, you’ve gotta wear a uniform,” said Steve as he and Bucky crept through the museum towards the Captain America exhibit. This assertion had been met with stony silence and an eyelid twitch of intense frustration from Fury, but Natasha had backed Steve up when he had brought up liberating his old uniform from the Smithsonian’s Captain America exhibit. She agreed with Steve that if they wanted the non-evil parts of SHIELD to rally behind them, they needed Steve to be Captain America, not Steve Rogers in cobbled together tac gear. Plus, Steve wanted Bucky out of the Winter Soldier uniform. They didn’t need the potential confusion that could cause, and Bucky’s old Howling Commando uniform would help distinguish him from the SHIELD/HYDRA personnel. Or at least, that’s what Steve told the others. If part of him wanted to strip away as many of HYDRA’s marks on Bucky as possible…well, no one else needed to know that.

Sam’s voice over the comms wrenched his attention back to the task at hand. “Yeah, but first we knocked over Fort Meade, and now the Smithsonian? I can’t believe Captain America’s seduced me to a life of crime.”  

“Is it really crime if we’re just stealing stuff that belongs to us anyway?” mused Bucky, eyes roving for any sign of the museum guards. He stopped to gawp when they reached the Captain America exhibit. Steve had been hoping to hustle him through too quickly for him to really see anything. He didn’t like to imagine the endless amount of shit Bucky was going to give him for this exhibit’s existence. It had been bad enough when Bucky had heard “The Star Spangled Man with a Plan,” for the first time.

“Awww, look at that, is that you at boot camp? I didn’t know there were photos--”

Steve pulled him along and said, “Don’t even start. You’re in here too, you know.”

The display with the Commandos’ old uniforms looked eerie and forbidding in the museum’s dim after hours lighting, and Steve felt weirdly like he was graverobbing as he divested the faceless mannequin of his old uniform. Bucky stared at his own old uniform for a moment, and ran his hand over it lightly as if testing its reality. Steve was about to prompt him to hurry up when Bucky shook his head and stripped the mannequin swiftly.

“Any chance my old rifle is around here somewhere? I really liked that rifle.”

“You’re not going into battle with a seventy year old rifle,” answered Steve repressively.

Natasha’s voice came in over the comms. “Wrap it up geezers, the guard’s gonna amble back that way in a couple minutes.”

Uniforms in hand, they made their exit from the museum back to where Fury was waiting with a SHIELD-issue SUV. The guards would get a surprise when they next passed by that display, but by the time any word could get out about the missing uniforms, they’d be at the Triskelion.

****

The Triskelion’s location on an island in the middle of the Potomac made breaching it covertly difficult. Access in and out was limited by the bridges connecting it to Washington DC proper, and security was inconveniently tight. Steve had resigned himself to a water approach and a long swim in the Potomac, and had begun laying out a plan to that effect during their earlier meeting, when Fury had just smirked. Because of course Nick Fury had secret tunnels to access the Triskelion unobserved. The better to make mysterious and dramatic entrances and exits with, Steve assumed.

Steve couldn’t quibble too much, given that Fury’s paranoia had paid off. The tunnel would take them under the Potomac and open onto the island, where he, Sam, and Bucky could make their way into the helicarrier hangar, and Fury could take his own route to get in position to crash the WSC meeting. Natasha was the only one who would be walking in through the front door, as Councilwoman Hawley. They could only hope the digital mesh mask that disguised her would hold up. Apparently, it was an experimental prototype. Steve tried not to think of it as yet another point of potential failure in a plan full of them. It would work or it wouldn’t, and either way, Natasha could handle herself. 

Fury’s SHIELD-issue SUV got them to the riverside opening of the tunnel without being accosted by any police or SHIELD/HYDRA. The closer they got to the Triskelion, the more the streets were packed with government-issue black cars, and their own blended in easily enough. No one knew to associate this particular SHIELD-issue SUV with them. 

When they got to the opening of the tunnel, Hill patched into their comms. 

“Well, HYDRA’s not fucking around any more. Sitwell just ordered every SHIELD agent to bring you guys in on suspicion of murdering Alexander Pierce.”

“Are you safe?” asked Steve.

“I had to get away before Sitwell could ask me any more questions about my loyalties. I’m holed up in one of the security rooms, no one knows I’m here.”

“Keep it that way,” ordered Steve.

“What’s the landscape in there, are people buying it?” asked Fury.

“They’re confused, sir. I’m gonna guess that those who aren’t are probably HYDRA.”

“Good guess. We’re moving in on the helicarrier hangar now, ETA 15 minutes. Keep us up to date, and let us know when the Council arrives.”

“Copy that, Cap,” answered Maria.

They moved through the tunnel at a brisk jog, the path illuminated by the lights on Bucky and Sam’s rifle scopes. There were no HYDRA agents waiting for them, to Steve’s relief. A fight in the tunnel would have probably led to a bottleneck, and they could ill-afford the time. The tunnel let out on the island, between the Triskelion itself and the attached hangar building, under cover of a small stand of trees. From there, Fury left for whatever secret route he had into the Triskelion while the rest of them headed towards the hangar. 

Steve took point, Sam beside him and Bucky at his six. It wasn’t like it had been with the Howling Commandos, but it felt right all the same. The certainty of Bucky at his back and Sam at his side was a bulwark against the grim work of fighting people he used to think were his colleagues. They fought a wave of HYDRA operatives on the way to the hangar’s comms room, and Steve thought he recognized some of them. These were people he had seen every day, people who had given him cheerful greetings of “Morning, Cap!” just a week ago. Now they were shooting at him and hissing “Hail HYDRA!” in his ear while they tried to choke him out. A toss and ricochet of the shield took care of that, and Bucky and Sam dispatched the others with quiet efficiency. 

They continued on towards the comms room, disabling security measures as they went. Steve was prepared to have to fight his way in, but the tall, thin SHIELD employee who met them at the door with wide eyes only raised his arms and let them in. For all Steve knew, he was a HYDRA tech who knew better than to try to go up against Captain America. He preferred to think the guy was a loyal SHIELD employee who was on their side though. Steve had to hope that there would be more SHIELD employees like him.

****

By the time they secured the comms room, the word came from Maria that the WSC meeting was underway. It was time to put the next part of the plan into action. Tony, with some help from Natasha, had worked up what Tony called a highlight reel of SHIELD/HYDRA’s dirtiest secrets, and it would be broadcast on every screen in the Triskelion. Steve would have to do the rest.

“Attention all SHIELD agents. This is Steve Rogers. I know some of you have been wondering where I’ve been in the last few days. Some of you may have been ordered not to ask any questions about that, and some of you may have been ordered to hunt me down. But I think it’s time you know the truth. SHIELD is not what we thought it was. It’s been taken over by HYDRA. Alexander Pierce was their leader,” Steve paused, and the footage and images Natasha and Tony had prepared took over every available screen in the Triskelion: the security camera footage from the bank where Bucky was kept, the files they had found in the HYDRA base, Pierce saying “Hail HYDRA.”

“The STRIKE and Insight crew and Jasper Sitwell are HYDRA as well. I don’t know how many more, but I know they’re in the building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they want: absolute control. They tried to kill Nick Fury. They held my best friend Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the Howling Commandos prisoner for 70 years.” Here, the Winter Soldier files they had recovered came up on the screens. “It won’t end there. They want to launch the helicarriers and Project Insight, and HYDRA will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way. Unless we stop them. I know I’m asking a lot. But the price of freedom is high, always has been. It’s a price I’m willing to pay. If I’m the only one, then so be it. But I’m willing to bet I’m not.” Steve signed off, and hoped it would be enough.

Sam broke the solemn silence to ask, “Did you write that down, or was it off the top of your head?” 

“Nah, didn’t you know, it’s one of Captain America’s lesser superpowers: patriotic speech giving. Learned it during those USO tours,” answered Bucky, waggling his eyebrows. 

Steve fought down an inappropriate rush of giddiness. All of a sudden, he could imagine the future stretching in front of him: Sam and Bucky and Natasha ganging up on him with their good-natured ribbing, nights shared with Bucky both in body and mind, waking and dreaming, a team he could trust in the Avengers. In that moment, he wanted that future desperately. He hadn’t been lying, he was willing to pay the price of this war. But most of all he wanted to live, he wanted them all to live through this. He’d fight as hard as he could to make sure that happened.

****

Steve only got the full story of what happened with Natasha, Sitwell, Fury, and the World Security Council once it was all over but for the considerable cleanup. In the middle of it though, it was a confusing rush of events that he couldn’t afford to pay too much attention to. He did notice that Sitwell attempted his own SHIELD-wide address, the gist of which was that Fury and Steve were traitors and attempting a coup, and that they should be treated as enemies of the state to be shot on sight. He was entirely silent on the matter of HYDRA. It was clearly a rushed and desperate attempt to salvage what he could even as SHIELD was erupting into civil war. From what Hill relayed over comms, Sitwell had made a much harder sell to the WSC.

The story Sitwell spun for the WSC might have been believable in different circumstances, given how Sitwell twisted the facts. In his version of events, Fury was HYDRA, and Fury was the one who activated the Winter Soldier to kill Pierce. Project Insight, Sitwell urged, would have to go live early to deal with this sudden coup and to eliminate the imminent threats to global security. It was a good story, and certainly enough evidence could be found and twisted to support it. But Steve’s own speech had made its impact, and not even the World Security Council could believe that Captain America would ever knowingly work for or with HYDRA.

Steve lost the plot sometime around when Sitwell was trying to justify the murder of untold millions, his focus drawn to the waves of HYDRA agents descending on the helicarrier hangars. Most of the crew surrounding Insight was HYDRA, and they were fighting hard to keep Steve, Bucky, and Sam from reaching the helicarriers, quickly overpowering the few loyal SHIELD agents who were trying to help. Steve’s world narrowed to the chaos of the battlefield around him and the objective of getting the chips to the helicarriers. Whatever was happening with the WSC had apparently descended into chaos too, judging from Hill’s reaction.

“Sitwell got the authorization from one of the council members, the helicarriers are launching, I repeat, the helicarriers are launching! You need to get those chips to the carriers’ server rooms, now!”

“What the hell is happening up there? Is Natasha safe?” demanded Steve.

“The ID badges, they were rigged—” Hill paused and Steve could hear a couple of gunshots before she continued, “Sitwell killed one of the council members and held the rest hostage until one of them gave the authorization. Natasha’s fine, Fury’s got things under control. But you need to get those chips on the helicarriers before they reach 3000 feet.”

“Understood.” He gestured to Sam and Bucky, and they changed course to go up to the airstrip that was even now rising out of the hangar complex under the Potomac. Sam’s air support was probably about to become necessary. 

“Hey Cap, how do we know the good guys from the bad guys?” asked Sam as they jogged towards the airstrip.

“If they’re shooting at you, they’re bad!”

Steve could practically hear Bucky rolling his eyes behind him. “Real helpful there, Cap!” 

And then HYDRA agents descended in a swarm and there was no time for anything but the fight.

****

They split up as the helicarriers rose out of the hangars. Sam engaged his wing pack and took to the air after one of the carriers while Steve and Bucky ran for the other two. Steve got a glimpse of Bucky making a beeline for one of the jets parked on the airstrip. Steve made a running leap for his carrier, the only helicarrier that was fully ready to implement Insight, and took out a couple HYDRA agents on the deck, and when he next looked over for a quick check on Sam and Bucky, Bucky was hauling some guy bodily out of one of the jets and tossing him out of it to replace him in the cockpit. Steve was torn between being disturbed and impressed. 

“Buck, can you even fly that thing?” he asked over the comms. Jets had not been part of the plan.

“Apparently!” came Bucky’s response, which was not reassuring at all. But Sam was dodging heavy fire in the air, and any support Bucky could give him would be welcome. He listened for the sounds of a hideous crash over the comms as he disabled a few more HYDRA agents, and relaxed a little when he didn’t hear it. Bucky could indeed fly the jet, and was making quick work of taking down the other jets. Meanwhile, the carriers were rising quickly. Steve renewed his focus on getting to the server room in the belly of the helicarrier.

For Steve, this part was, if not easy, then uncomplicated: his Serum-enhanced body and reflexes worked faster than his opponents, letting him land disabling blows before they could even really engage in a fight. The shield took care of deflecting the stream of bullets directed at him. There was no room in his head or time to spare worrying about the rest of his team, he told himself. Any lapse of focus could get him killed. 

He was nearly to the server room when Sam confirmed over comms that he had his chip locked in and that he was making his way over to Bucky’s helicarrier. 

“Good, because I’m about to need a ride,” said Bucky.

The path to the server room was suspiciously clear. Steve didn’t have a good feeling about it. “What happened to your jet?”

“I crashed it into another jet.”

“I see you—goddammit Barnes! Fuck, you’re heavy—”

Steve felt a sick swoop of anxiety in his stomach, because if Bucky fell again, he was going to lose it, totally, entirely lose it—

“Jesus Christ, give a guy more than thirty seconds warning,” griped Sam. Whatever idiot thing Bucky had just done, Sam had apparently caught him.

“We’re on our way to the server room,” reported Bucky.

Steve had by now slowed his own approach to the server room, certain HYDRA was waiting for him. It made sense: this was the one helicarrier actually equipped with the weapons to begin implementing Project Insight, and they had to know Steve was coming. Steve hadn’t seen any STRIKE team members in their assault on the Triskelion and the helicarriers so far. He guessed the remaining dirty members of the STRIKE team would be waiting to take him out in the server room now. They were the closest to being an even match against him, and while Steve was confident of being able to take any of them on individually, going against the whole team would prove a challenge even for him. 

Bucky’s voice interrupted Steve’s thoughts on the best approach to take against the STRIKE team. “Second chip locked in. What’s your status, Cap?” 

“I’m about to go in, think I’m gonna have company. You two get off the carriers before I get the chip in. I’ll let you know when I need a pickup.”

“Roger that,” answered Sam.

After a brief moment to listen for any hint of how many HYDRA agents he could expect when he entered the server room, he made his way in, shield up and ready to be thrown. There were ten agents of the STRIKE team waiting for him, plus Brock Rumlow. Steve had liked Rumlow, who had always treated him with respect and a refreshing lack of wide-eyed hero worship. He was, Steve had thought, a professional. A professional Nazi apparently, he now amended. No time to be disappointed though. The chip had to go in the server blade or all of this would be for nothing.

Steve threw his shield in a swift, vicious arc towards the throats of the two closest HYDRA agents, rolled to dodge the return fire, and got off three rapid fire shots with his own gun at some of the remaining agents before he had to catch the shield on the rebound. He charged at the remaining agents and they rushed to meet him, giving up on a gunfight at such close quarters. It wasn’t entirely unlike their sparring sessions, but it was in deadly earnest now. Steve fought fast and dirty, dirtier perhaps than they were used to from him. He didn’t hold back with his disabling blows, and soon enough most of them were on the ground.

The last agent save Rumlow came at him with a knife, easily enough blocked with his shield, but he was fast. They exchanged a rapid series of blows and grapples, and Steve had to dodge shots from Rumlow the whole time. One shot actually hit him high in the shoulder, and another in his back, but Steve ignored the bursts of sudden pain that flared bright on top of all of the other aches and bruises he had accumulated. It wouldn’t kill him, he knew. 

“Give it up, Cap! HYDRA has won! You cut off one head back in the 40s, and hundreds grew back in its place. You won’t win now either!” 

He ignored Rumlow’s taunts and knocked the guy he was grappling with out with one hard hit to the head and tossed him in Rumlow’s direction, making a run for the catwalk leading to the server blades. 

Rumlow dived for him, knocking the shield off his arm, and there was no finesse to this desperate rolling grapple. They were just trying to stop each other with vicious, dirty hits. Rumlow had pulled a knife at some point, and Steve felt its bite in the muscles of his side as he twisted away to keep it from sinking into one of his kidneys. Hill’s voice was loud in his ear, telling him there wasn’t much time, he had to get the chip in now. Bucky and Sam were asking for status updates and giving their own, but Steve could only spare enough attention to register that they were both fine. He managed to kick Rumlow off of him, and threw him to one side of the room before running at full speed for the server blades. He could hear Rumlow getting back up behind him.

Thankfully, getting the chip in was fairly simple. “Last chip locked,” he gasped over the comms, and then didn’t have the breath to say any more as Rumlow tackled him off of the catwalk and the earpiece for his comms was knocked out of his ear. If Rumlow had been desperate and vicious before, it was nothing compared to now. He was a cornered animal lashing out however he could with all the brutality he could bring to bear. It didn’t matter: the chip was in, and explosions were rocking the helicarrier even now.

“It’s over, Rumlow! Insight is finished,” Steve said, dodging and blocking Rumlow’s blows when he could and returning his own. The helicarrier was listing now, the horizon tilting crazily in the corner of his vision.

Rumlow’s bloodied face was a rictus of mingled wild triumph and defeat. “Well, at least I can take the Captain down with this ship,” he said, and used the sudden rocking of the carrier to slam Steve against one of the rafters. All his injuries exploded into renewed agony, vision whiting out for a few seconds.

“Thought that just because the Winter Soldier was on your leash instead of HYDRA’s you could win? He’s HYDRA’s weapon, and he always will be.”

Rumlow knew about the Winter Soldier, about Bucky. Of course Rumlow had known. And here, now, the swell of rage that Steve had been shoving down for months for lack of a target for it finally overtook him. He had trained with Rumlow. Rumlow had been on his six on multiple missions. Rumlow had had the gall to offer his _condolences_ once, for the loss of Bucky and the Howling Commandos. And all that time, he had known. Pierce had known, had been the one to have Bucky wiped, but Pierce was dead, and it was Rumlow sneering at him and reducing Bucky to a leashed dog. So Steve snapped.

The fury that Steve had previously only let out on specially reinforced punching bags found a new outlet in Rumlow, and there was no restraint or artfulness in it, just a barrage of punches that were hard enough that Steve could feel bone crack under his gloved fists. Rumlow wasn’t putting up much of a fight beneath the onslaught. Steve was distantly aware that the helicarrier was falling apart around him, that he had no way to call for an extraction and no way to know if there was even one coming. 

When Rumlow was finally still, Steve came back to himself. The situation was depressingly familiar: stuck on a crashing airplane with no way out but down. He cast about quickly for the comms earpiece, but gave it up for a hopeless cause and just retrieved his shield where it was wedged between twisted steel beams instead. The carrier was shaking harder now, and the air was full of the screeching sound of failing metal and the smell of acrid smoke. He couldn’t go down with it, he had to bail out. He hoped the carrier was still over the Potomac. He hoped Sam spotted him falling and caught him, hoped Bucky was safe, and hoped desperately that the body the Serum gave him would hold up to whatever it took to get him out of this alive. His injuries were starting to make themselves felt now.

What was left of the server room was a wreck, parts of it torn open and exposed to the open air. Steve tripped his way towards one of the holes and took a look out of it to see the waters of the Potomac below. He turned his eyes to what he could see of the sky through the wreckage of the carrier, but he could see no sign of Sam or his wings among the jets and choppers filling the air. The drop to the water wasn’t that far. Steve took one deep, painful breath, and let himself fall. Even with the shield to take some of the impact, the force of the fall was enough to make something in his ribs snap and all the air rush out of his lungs. He struggled to swim to the surface, but the pain and lack of air overcame him. His last thought as the black water filled his vision was _Bucky is gonna be so mad at me._

****

When Steve woke up, it was to the soft sounds of music, and the vague memory of Bucky in confusing, sticky slow dreams. He cracked open his eyes to fluorescent hospital lighting and Sam sitting on his right.

“On your left,” he croaked out.

“Real funny,” said Sam, and looked meaningfully across the bed.

Steve knew Bucky was there. He always was, when Steve was in the hospital. He turned his head to meet Bucky’s dark glower and examined him for any injuries. He was wearing civvies though his posture was all upright military. There were a couple healing scrapes on his face, and he could see the edge of a bandage peeking out from under the collar of his shirt. He was also, Steve winced to see, expressionless save the dark look in his eyes. There was an uncomfortable similarity to the Winter Soldier’s blankness in the look, and it worried Steve.

“That was not the extraction plan, Captain Rogers.” That was familiar at least, even if the tone was colder than Bucky had ever taken before. He was only Captain Rogers to Bucky in front of COs and when Bucky was especially pissed at something he did in the field.

“The plan had to be adjusted to respond to unforeseen complications, Sergeant Barnes,” he said, before breaking into a fit of coughing that made him aware of all of his injuries. His chest was tight and painful, and everything ached through the haze of painkillers that never fully worked on him since the Serum. Bucky was there then, spooning an ice chip into his mouth and moving the bed up to ease his breathing. He moved back to resume his position in his seat by the bed, though Steve wanted him closer. When Steve had been in the hospital as a kid, Bucky had always managed to sneak in and join him on the bed, bringing Steve’s homework or a library book with him.

“Natasha and the others?” he asked, when he caught his breath.

“Everyone’s fine. Banged up, but fine,” answered Sam.

“The carriers have all been neutralized. Agent Sitwell is in custody. And Agent Romanoff has dumped all of SHIELD and HYDRA’s files onto the internet. The mission has been completed within acceptable parameters.” Steve had the feeling this was the way Bucky used to report in to Pierce. He didn’t want to be the guy Bucky gave this kind of mission report to.

Sam gave Bucky a wary glance. “Yeah, Natasha really took the whole ‘get it all out in the open’ thing to heart. Fury’s gonna have a lot of questions to answer.”

“How did I—”

“Not drown? Seems like you’re real attached to that method of dying.” Bucky crossed his arms and sat back in his chair. Steve knew he wasn’t out of the doghouse yet, but this felt like a reprieve compared to the earlier dispassion.

“Buck, come on, you know—”

“I pulled you out, you idiot, what the fuck did you think happened?”

“Yeah, he kind of tossed himself out of the chopper as soon as he saw you taking your swan dive,” added Sam.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t exactly have many options. And I was pretty sure I’d survive the drop.”

“Shut up, you’re gonna start coughing again.” Bucky leaned forward to shove another ice chip in Steve’s mouth, and got up to pace alongside Steve’s bed. “You would’ve survived, probably, if the fall hadn’t shoved one of your ribs into your lung.”

“Oh.”

“Like I said, are you particularly attached to death by drowning? Because there was the pneumonia in ‘35 and ‘39, and then there was you taking that plane down in the Arctic, and now you getting a lungful of the Potomac—”

Sam stood up and began backing out of the room. “Okay, uh, I’m just gonna—”

Steve flailed and grabbed at Bucky’s arm as he passed and reeled him in for a kiss. It was the only apology Steve could think to give Bucky, or at least the only one that would get him to wind down. It hurt his still tender ribs and the healing gunshot wounds in his shoulder and back, and was little more than a closed mouth press of lips, but it was worth it. When Bucky pulled away, his posture had eased into something a little less Winter Soldier and a little more Bucky. He dragged his chair closer to the bed and pressed a kiss to Steve’s forehead.

“We’re both too big to fit in the same hospital bed now. Go back to sleep, Steve.”

He still had more questions: how many casualties, were Tony and Bruce still safe, how was Fury handling the fallout, had Sitwell given up more intel on HYDRA and…

“My shield? Did you—”

Bucky snorted. “I was a little fucking preoccupied with keeping you alive, Steve. No, I didn’t find your shield.” Steve felt a swoop of dismay in his stomach before Bucky leaned over to pick something up from by the foot of the bed. He presented the shield, which looked none the worse for wear from its dip in the Potomac, for Steve’s inspection with a judgey sort of glower, which was rich coming from the man who had spent the war treating his rifle like it was a spoiled baby. “Some Coast Guard guy found it. Seems like finding your shield’s become the highlight of his entire goddamn life. You’re lucky he didn’t decide it was finders keepers.” 

“And the uniform? The Smithsonian people are gonna be so mad…”

“Forchrissake, it’s fine, I told you, it doesn’t count as stealing if it was our stuff anyway. Go to sleep, Steve.”

He could feel exhaustion tugging him under again. It was hard to keep his eyes open. Healing so much always took a lot out of him, and he knew from experience there was nothing for it but to sleep it off.

“Sleep with me, don’t wanna dream alone,” he mumbled and reached out for Bucky.

“Ugh, your drugged up dreams were weird and made me feel high,” groused Bucky, but he took Steve’s hand anyway. 

Steve sank into sleep as if anchored to it, and when he dreamed it wasn’t of memories or nightmares. He dreamed of water and strange colors and light, half-lucid as he drifted in and out of dreams and true unconsciousness. Time skipped and stretched into meaninglessness. When Bucky showed up, after what seemed like both forever and no time at all, he brought the sky with him. The Northern Lights painted their shared dreamscape with an eerie and lovely glow until they both fell into a deeper, dreamless sleep. It was probably the most restful sleep Steve had had since the ice. 

****

Steve and Bucky had precious little time for rest, in the wake of what was being called the SHIELD civil war. Once Steve was out of the hospital, there were funerals and hearings and meetings and extractions of suddenly compromised SHIELD field agents and raids on SHIELD outposts that had turned into HYDRA bases. Bucky’s knowledge of HYDRA protocol and bases, scattered and incomplete as it still was, had proved invaluable, and they had come to the mutual agreement to strike hard against HYDRA while they had the upper hand. It seemed like what Bucky needed. It was maybe what Steve needed too. Their war wasn’t over yet, and neither of them could rest easy until they cut off as many of HYDRA’s heads as possible.

Sam and Natasha joined them on what Sam was calling their “road trip of revenge,” and as the HYDRA bases dwindled, Sam and Natasha were slowly tugging the road trip away from being a quest for destruction towards being an actual road trip. Steve couldn’t complain too much about it. Natasha was relaxing in ways he’d never seen before, now that she was free of all of her covers. Sam was a steady, solid presence, a reminder of friendship and life beyond their war. 

Maybe most importantly though, the ever-present tension in Bucky was ratcheting down in increments. He talked to Sam and Natasha some about the things he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, talk to Steve about. And he slept in the car sometimes, now, head leaned against the window, exposing the vulnerable line of his neck and the sweet downturn of his mouth to the deep golden light of late afternoon. Moments like that, Steve couldn’t take his eyes off of him and thought he would be okay with staying on the road forever.

When they weren’t on the road taking down HYDRA or visiting dubious roadside attractions that Natasha insisted were must-sees, he and Bucky shared a room and a bed in a series of motels of varying levels of seediness. They didn’t do anything but talk and neck lazily and tangle together before they fell asleep, and into each other’s dreams. The dreams were more muddled now, more like normal confusing dreams that neither of them fully remembered when they woke up. Bucky thought maybe the ability was fading now that he was out of cryo and his brain was given a chance to heal properly from the wipes.

But Bucky had nightmares too. He usually managed to kick Steve out of them, or keep him out altogether, and Steve would wake to Bucky curled up tight and white-faced, eerily silent except for his panting breaths. On those nights, Steve would just talk softly until his voice broke through Bucky’s nightmare and he woke. Steve didn’t touch him. They’d learned the hard way that was a bad idea. 

One night though, after a day that was more road trip of sightseeing than road trip of revenge, the dream they shared was neither a messy muddle of memories nor a nightmare.It was more like one of the dreams Steve used to have when he and Bucky shared an apartment in Brooklyn together, the dreams that woke him, alone in his narrow bed, to jerk off guiltily to thoughts of Bucky. 

This time he didn’t wake up alone. Bucky was across from him, within arm’s reach. But it had been weeks, and they had done nothing more than kiss. Steve had been carefully respectful of this boundary Bucky had wordlessly set. Bucky got to decide what happened to his body and what he did with it, now.So Steve had shoved down his frustration and jerked off like he was a teenager again in the shower in the morning, or whenever Bucky was out getting something to eat with Sam or sparring with Natasha.

Now though. In the still fuzzy aftermath of a dream that had been undeniably erotic in ways that even now were fading from Steve’s mind, Bucky’s eyes on him were heated, pupils almost swallowing the blue of his irises in the dim predawn light. 

“Sorry, I think that was me,” said Steve, voice coming out low and hoarse with sleep. “If you don’t want—”

Bucky moved towards Steve to straddle him and Steve jerked his hips involuntarily in response. He was hard already, even though the dream had dissipated like fog to leave only the arousal behind. But Steve had to be careful. He had to be sure that Bucky was sure.

“Wait. You don’t have to—” Bucky leaned down to kiss him, dirty and urgent, and Steve lifted his head to meet him, cupping Bucky’s face in his hands.

They were both breathing hard by the time Bucky pulled away and said, “I want this. I want you.”

Steve answered that by tugging Bucky back down for another kiss, which brought other parts of them in closer contact too. Bucky made a small noise into his mouth and ground down, and if he kept going like that, this was going to be over real soon. Which would be embarrassing. In Steve’s defense, it had been….a long time. When they next broke apart, Steve pulled himself back to sit up against the headboard while Bucky tugged Steve’s shirt off. Once he had, he bit his lower lip and sat back on his heels for a moment, though he kept his hands on Steve’s hips. The cooler metal one raised pleasant gooseflesh on Steve’s skin. 

“Okay, I feel like I should tell you that I have no idea what I’m doing,” admitted Bucky.

Steve slid his hands under Bucky’s shirt, and god, he was so warm. Steve lost himself in the feel of the broad expanse of smooth skin under his hands. Bucky’s breath hitched when Steve reached the seam of twisted scar tissue where the metal arm met flesh.

“Rogers, are you listening to me? Because as far as I can remember, this is kind of a first for me. Doing this with a guy.”

“Yeah, I just don’t think it matters. You were doin’ just fine.” Steve ducked in for another few kisses and managed to get Bucky’s shirt off. It wasn’t like Steve hadn’t noticed before, but while Bucky had always been strong, the taut bulk of his muscles now was something new. The scars were new too. Steve traced a line down the length of the worst of the scarring, keeping his touch feather light, then followed it with a trail of deliberate kisses. Bucky held himself carefully still though his breath shuddered out unsteadily.Steve moved on to run appreciative hands over Bucky’s abdomen, and then settled his hold on Bucky’s hips to bring him closer again. It earned him a gratifying moan and twitch of the hips from Bucky when it brought their dicks in tantalizingly close contact.

“Do _you_ know what you’re doing?” asked Bucky.

“I may have… done some research.”

Bucky’s lips stretched into a wicked grin. “Yeah? Did you watch blue movies or something?” Bucky moved his hand down to cup Steve’s erection. He arched and gasped into the touch.

“Yeah,” he answered breathlessly. “Wanted to—” Bucky tugged impatiently at Steve’s sweatpants, and Steve lifted his hips to help him pull them off, and then Bucky’s hand was on his cock and it felt like every word he had ever known fled his head all at once. Bucky’s metal hand came up to cup Steve’s face and he positively attacked Steve with a series of searing kisses on his mouth, his jaw, his neck.

“Wanted to what?”

“Wanted to know how to make it good for you.”

“This is pretty good for me.” His eyes were rapt on Steve while his hand made what felt like a pretty thorough exploration of Steve’s cock. His thumb brushed against the precome that was gathering at the head of Steve’s erection, and that thoroughly derailed any rational thought left in Steve’s brain. He had wanted this for so long. He arched up into Bucky’s hand, which was still moving with agonizing slowness.

“Please, Bucky.You’ve gotta—” gasped out Steve.

“Go faster?” Bucky gave him a faux-innocent look under his lashes and continued with his gentle pace. He cut off Steve’s response with a leisurely, thoroughly dirty kiss that left them both breathless, all the while continuing his slow stroking of Steve’s cock. Steve’s awareness narrowed to every point his body was in contact with Bucky, where his nerves were singing and alight with warmth and pleasure, and he lost the plot for a bit. He must have made some sound, some wordless moan of frustration, because Bucky finally grinned and sped up, his hand jerking Steve off at a pace that felt perfectly too much and not enough at once. Steve finally came with an intensity he’d never felt before after what could have been minutes or hours. Jerking himself off after this was going to feel like a major disappointment, he thought distantly.

Bucky fumbled around for something to clean up some of the sticky mess of come. Steve luxuriated in the afterglow for a minute.

“So how’d that compare to your research?” Steve answered Bucky by pulling him down for another kiss and rolling over so he was over Bucky now. He kissed his way down Bucky’s body until he was level with Bucky’s erect cock. He felt a brief flash of apprehension: what if he didn’t do this right, what if Bucky didn’t like it? But hell, he’d never backed down from a challenge, so he settled his hands at Bucky’s hips and took the hard length of his cock in his mouth.

Bucky let out a strangled sort of moan and a breathy “oh fuck,” that had Steve’s cock twitching in interest again. Steve sucked at Bucky’s cock slowly at first, partly to get used to it and partly as revenge for earlier. Bucky’s right hand patted clumsily at Steve’s head and stroked through his hair, and Steve took that for the wordless encouragement it was and sped up a little. Bucky was panting above him, babbling nonsense that was somewhere between plea and prayer. Steve catalogued all of it carefully: what made Bucky moan, what made him gasp, what made his hips twitch and stutter. 

When Bucky’s hand fisted in his hair, Steve knew he was close. Steve sucked and lapped at his cock harder and then Bucky gasped and said, “Oh god, Steve, I’m gonna—” and then he came in one hot rush. The taste was strange but not wholly unpleasant, and Steve smiled as he pulled his mouth from Bucky’s cock. Bucky groped at his shoulders and pulled him up towards him where Steve sprawled across his chest.

“Worth the wait?” he mumbled into Bucky’s shoulder. 

Bucky laughed. Steve levered himself up to look at Bucky’s face, whose eyes were on fixed on him with warmth and wonder.

“Yeah, Steve. More than worth it.”

****

The “road trip of revenge” was winding down with slow inevitability. The stops to take out HYDRA bases and HYDRA agents were coming fewer and further in between the stops at various tourist traps and national parks. They even tried camping at Sam’s behest, but Sam gave that up in despair soon enough, after seeing the grim way Steve and Bucky tackled it as if they were on a campaign. Natasha had been none too fond of it either. So they drove across the country somewhat aimlessly, stopping at whatever bizarre attraction caught Natasha’s interest and every tiny museum and art gallery that caught Steve’s.

Bucky didn’t express any particular desire to see anything specific. He limited his requests for stops to particular HYDRA bases or logistics-related breaks for supplies and ammo. He was quiet in a way Steve was still getting used to, even if he smiled a little easier and leaned into Steve’s touches. So when Bucky took a look at the map they were poring over at dinner (greasy diner food at an alien-themed diner in the veritable middle of nowhere Nevada, thanks Natasha), and traced the cleft of the Grand Canyon drawn there with a metal finger, they all noticed. 

“Thought you were sick of my awesome national park camping trips,” teased Sam.

“You ever been to the Grand Canyon?” asked Natasha.

Sam shook his head. “Nah, but it’s one of the natural wonders of the world, right? We should go. We’re not that far away, only a day’s drive.” He sketched out a potential route on the map with his fork.

Steve studied Bucky’s face carefully. Bucky’s eyes were still trained on the map, but his brow was furrowed the way it usually got when he was remembering something.

“I saw it, in your dreams.”

“That’s really not going to stop being weird,” said Sam. They had finally had to explain the whole dream situation to Sam shortly after the helicarriers went down. It had made Sam look like he was deeply regretting all of the poor life choices that had led him to team up with Steve.

“Yeah.” The memory of that dream was still visceral for Steve. It had rattled him down to his bones. He cleared his throat and continued, “Yeah, I dreamed it up once that time when—”

“When I totally freaked you out,” finished Bucky. “Sorry about that. I was still…” He gestured vaguely at his head. “Pretty confused and messed up.”

“We were both pretty confused and messed up. Do you want to see the real thing? I guarantee it’s a lot more impressive.” And a lot less likely to turn into a nightmarish recreation of that awful day Bucky fell from the train. 

“I wanted to see it, after the war. I remember that.” Bucky raised his eyes from the map to Steve, an unspoken request for confirmation. Steve nodded, and reached across the table to take Bucky’s hand.

“War’s over, soldier. We can go be tourists at the Grand Canyon,” said Natasha. She looked pleased at the thought. Natasha was taking an unholy glee in playing tourist that wasn’t limited to her commitment to seeking out the strangest roadside attractions and tourist traps available, and she and Sam were egging each other on to new extremes of crass tourist stereotypes. Sam currently had the upper hand, having donned a fanny pack in what appeared to be total earnestness. 

With the two of them and Bucky, it was difficult to imagine a trip to the Grand Canyon that was more different than the lonely pilgrimage Steve had made after the Battle of New York. Steve had been planning on pushing on towards Wyoming, where intel suggested HYDRA had a weapons cache. Fury had classified it as low priority though. And the prospect of visiting the Grand Canyon with Natasha, Sam, and Bucky was more than tempting. It suddenly seemed vitally necessary that Bucky’s long-deferred dream of seeing the Grand Canyon come true.

“Grand Canyon it is then,” said Steve. Bucky gave his hand a squeeze in thanks, eyes crinkling in a sweet smile.

When they got there after a day’s drive, it was coming up on sunset. Crowds chattering in multiple languages milled around, all slowly making their way to the edge of the Canyon for the most advantageous view. Bucky grabbed Steve’s hand and dragged him forward through the crowd. Steve had to laugh at Bucky’s sudden childlike excitement. Bucky stopped in his tracks though at his first unobstructed look at the view, eyes wide. Sam and Natasha crowded behind them. Steve had seen it before, but there was no getting used to the sight. The sheer size and breadth of the Grand Canyon induced a dizzying perspective shift every time.

“This was a good idea, James,” said Natasha, voice soft.

“Would it attract too much attention if I go back to get my wings? Because I wanna fly in that.”

Bucky led them to a free spot along some of the fencing that kept tourists from toppling into the depths of the Canyon. Bucky immediately perched on the railing in a way that looked all too precarious. Steve clutched at him.

“Are you worried I’m going to fall in?” asked Bucky, looking back at him, clearly amused. “The evidence suggests it wouldn’t kill me.”

Natasha snickered. Steve glared and wrapped his arms around Bucky’s waist as Bucky turned back towards the view. Sam joined Bucky on the railing, because he was also a crazy person with no sense of self-preservation, and directed a stare that was half awed and half longing towards the Canyon’s wide expanse.

“What, too soon?”

“You’re the worst.”

They lapsed into silence then, just staring at the Grand Canyon as the sun sank towards the horizon. The murmur of the crowd began to settle into more of a hush, save the clicking noises of smartphone cameras taking photos. It was a cloudless day, and the sky turned into a blank canvas for the warm oranges and golds painted by the sinking sun. The colors shifted from moment to moment as twilight deepened and the dark gathered in the depths of the Canyon.

The last time Steve had been here, he had been alone. This time, he had Bucky in his arms and Sam at his side, Natasha tucked between them with her head on Sam’s shoulder. The contrast was almost more dizzying than the height. It filled him with a wild and disbelieving sort of gratitude: the war was over and Bucky was here with him. There were things and people they had all lost and would never get back, but they were alive and together. It was all Steve had ever dared to hope for from the future.

If anyone else noticed the sheen of tears in Steve’s eyes, or the shuddering breath Bucky let out, they stayed silent. Stars were beginning to twinkle in the darkening sky. Much of the crowd began drifting away, satisfied that they had ticked a must-see sight off of their vacation to-do lists. Their little group lingered though, until the last embers of light were fading from the horizon and the chill of a desert evening began creeping in the air. 

Eventually, Bucky tilted his head back against Steve. “Let’s go home.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I used a couple of real locations after getting over zealous in my research. I'm sure that warehouse by Thumpers in Curtis Bay is not home to any nefarious Nazi shenanigans, and Little Miss Whiskey's Golden Dollar is probably a fine establishment even aside from its convenience as a secret meeting location.


End file.
